Falling Apart
by Kathryn Hart
Summary: Something is wrong with the Doctor. He can't stop thinking about Rose, and soon he loses his grip on reality. Is there something else going on? Or is the Doctor just going crazy? Eleven/Rose, Amy/Rory, River/? Numerous surprise twists! Hurt/Comfort, Drama, Angst, Romance, Slight Action
1. Falling Apart

**Title: Falling Apart**

**Main Characters: Eleventh Doctor, Amy Pond, Rory Williams, River Song, and featuring Rose Tyler.**

**Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Drama, Slight Action**

**Setting: After A Christmas Carol(Series 5)but before The Impossible Astronaut(Series 6), though it jumps forward a bit later into series 6.**

**Summary: Something is wrong with the Doctor. He can't stop thinking about Rose, and soon he loses his grip on reality. Is there something else going on? Or is the Doctor just going crazy? Eleven/Rose, Amy/Rory, River/?**

**A/N: I actually started this story back in 2010, just after series 5 had aired.(aren't you glad I didn't start posting then?) I'm keeping it in the same timeline, so I hope you don't mind some Amy and Rory :) River will be in this, but I have to warn you this is not an Eleven/River story, in fact it's very much not so. She will help the story along, so I'm playing nice with her(for now). So no River(OR ROSE) bashing, whatsoever. Reviews of the like WILL be reported!(I'm speaking as someone with experience with this). **

**This story starts out a bit...'fluff'y(and cheesy), but don't worry, the real plot will take over and a lot more dramatic elements will be added. Theme and inspiration for this story is "Broken" by Lifehouse(I particularly like the "New/Radio Version"). Enjoy!**

* * *

_"The broken clock is a comfort,_

_it helps me sleep tonight._  
_Maybe it can stop tomorrow_

_from stealing all my time._  
_I am here still waiting,_

_though i still have my doubts._  
_I am damaged at best, _

_like you've already figured out..._

_I'm fallin' apart._

_I'm barely breathing,_

_With a broken heart_

_That's still beating._

_In the pain There is healing._

_In your name I find meaning._

_So I'm holdin' on. I'm holdin' on._

_I'm holdin' on._  
_I'm barely, holdin' on to you..." _

_~Lifehouse_

_"When I last stood on this beach, on the worst day of my life, what was the last thing you said to me?" The Doctor in the brown suit stared longingly at Rose, both his hearts beating, telling him to follow his one greatest desire._

_ "I said 'Rose Tyler'."_

_ "Yeah...and how was that sentence gonna end?" The Doctor stepped up close to her. Ignoring the look of surprise on the clone Doctor's face, the real Time Lord Doctor leaned in to whisper in Rose's ear._

_ "I was going to say, Rose Tyler...I love you." Rose looked up in shock. Her eyes filled with wonder, love and tears. Before both of them knew what was happening, their lips met and they kissed passionately. Rose was the Doctor's, and nothing could separate that, not anything–_

* * *

The Doctor sat up in his bed, the sheets and blankets strewn about him. He looked around in surprise. It had felt _so real! _He looked in the mirror. Nope. Green eyes, brown hair, large chin. All he was missing was his bow tie.

He wearily rubbed his hands over his face. He was startled to feel the wetness of tears.

_"This is why I normally don't sleep!" _When it hadn't been horrific images of the Time War, it had been nightmares of Rose falling into the void, or of her staying with the clone Doctor forever. Except the last one had been true.

_"I've lost companions before, why is Rose any different?" _But in truth he already knew why. Rose made him feel like nothing he ever had since before the Time War. With Rose he wasn't the Destroyer of Worlds, just someone broken who needed fixing, which she did in her own special way. Not to mention he had given both his hearts completely to that woman.

He sighed deeply. Ever since Amy had brought him back after exploding the Pandorica, he had these horrible nightmares of Rose. This last one had been the worst. Not because it wasn't what he wanted, it truly was, but it was because it _never happened. _And that was something he couldn't bear.

He pulled the covers off his bed and stood up. Soon he was clothed in his trademark tweed suit complete with red bow tie. His hair remained disheveled, and for once the Doctor had no wish to fix it. Instead he headed to the main console room. He was surprised to see Amy and Rory already there waiting for him.

"Hey Doctor." Rory said, waving once.

"Rory, Amy. What are you guys doing in here?"

"We're waiting for you." Amy said, a slight look of concern in her eyes.

"What?" The Doctor was oblivious.

"You've been in your room for over twenty-four hours."

"What!?" The Doctor cried, looking at the watch on his wrist. It was true. He hadn't slept in that long since before Rose had left. _Rose. _

"Are you alright?" Rory asked him.

"Yes, yes I'm fine." The Doctor shook his head, but the image of Rose still wouldn't go away. He winced as his head started pounding something fierce. Amy and Rory came up to him.

"Maybe you better sit down." Amy said, reaching over to steady his shoulder. Suddenly the Doctor swept her hand away from him.

"Just-don't!" He looked down towards the floor, ignoring the concerned looks of his newlywed companions. "I'm fine." He repeated. When he looked up the pounding had stopped. "New alien planet?" He asked, trying to get Amy and Rory to believe that he was fine. If only he believed it himself...

* * *

_Ten minutes later..._

Amy rushed into the TARDIS, with the Doctor and Rory close behind on her heels. A giant laser exploded above them. Rory slammed the door shut and collapsed on the ground, breathing heavily.

"Doctor!" Amy shouted in anger. "You nearly got us killed! What were you thinking?" The Doctor really couldn't say. He had blanked out, said the wrong thing at the wrong time. His mistake nearly killed all three of them.

In truth he did know. His inside thoughts were distracting him, causing him to lose control. He was falling apart.

Without saying a word, he got up and departed to his room, leaving the Ponds sitting on the floor. Amy and Rory just stared at each other blankly.

The Doctor slammed the door to his room. He leaned up against the door, listening. When he was satisfied knowing that Amy and Rory hadn't followed him, he snuck back into the hallway. Looking both ways he ventured deeper into the TARDIS. Upon entering a certain door, he pulled out his key from his jacket pocket. It was one of the few doors he still kept locked. After one last look around him he opened the door and shut it behind him.

* * *

This room had been very special to him. It was a room he had stored various items all his companions long gone had owned.

Starting from the beginning, there were sections, one for each companion he had traveled with. Each section held photos, treasures and random items they had left behind.

He picked up Susan's hair clip and stared at it. The glitter had fallen off and the pink had faded, but he smiled sadly.

Moving on he marveled at random items: Jo's scarf, Leela's yo-yo, Nyssa's hairbrush, a bottle of Peri's perfume, Ace's broken radio. He laughed softly at the memory. Martha had given him a stethoscope to remember her by, the Doctor had placed a magnifying glass in Donna's section to remember her by.

And finally he came to a door. A very special door. A while ago he had asked the TARDIS to move this room from right down the hall, to into this area. The door was painted a soft pink. He pulled out a special key from his pocket, the one specially made for this door.

After unlocking it, he prepared himself. Gripping the handle, he took a deep breath and went in.

He hadn't entered this room for years. He knew the pain would be too overwhelming, and he was right.

He looked around Rose's room with sorrowful wonder. He was careful not to disturb any of the random clothing items she had left on the floor nearly three years ago. The Doctor sat upon the unmade bed and looked on the wall above her bed where two pictures were framed.

The first one was of Rose, Jack, and his Ninth form. That day, so long ago...it was the day they had found Margaret the Slitheen for the second time. The picture had been taken that morning by Mickey the Idiot. Rose stood in the middle, the Doctor to her left and Jack to her right. Jack held two fingers above her head in a teasing manner. The Doctor smiled warmly at the memory.

The second picture was of Rose and his Tenth form. He fondly remembered that day...

_"Doctor!" The Doctor turned around at Rose's soft lyrical call._

_ "Over here Rose." He beckoned her over to the other side of the console._

_ "Look what I found!" She shook her digital camera in his face excitedly._

_ "Yeah, it's your camera, you've always had it." He raised an eyebrow at her._

_ "Doctor, haven't you been hearing me at all these past two weeks?"_

_ "About what?" Rose grumbled._

_ "I asked you if you had seen my camera about a million times, it was lost!"_

_ "And now you found it!" He grinned at her. "Where was it?"_

_ "Like you would remember if I told you." _

_ "Rose." He gave her an exasperated look._

_ "If you really must know, it was under my bed." The Doctor snorted._

_ "Oi!" Rose said indignantly. "I like my room messy thank you very much. I feel more at home that way."_

_ "Sure you do."_

_ "I do." Rose insisted. "Anyways, could I take a picture of us, since I haven't had any pictures of you since you..." She stopped. The unsaid word 'regenerated' hung in the air between them._

_ "Of course." The Doctor smiled, breaking the tension. Rose grinned back._

_ She grabbed the camera and leaned up against the Doctor. He slowly wrapped his arm around her waist. They both smiled politely into the camera as it flashed._

_ "Hold on." Rose said, turning the viewer on. "Oops!" The Doctor leaned over stared at the picture just taken. The picture had been way off. They couldn't even see their heads. They looked at each other in silence, then both burst out laughing._

_ "Quick, take the picture!" The Doctor cried out. Rose held the camera up again. After it flashed they looked at the second picture. It was still off center, but their smiles were bigger and more natural this time. It was a great picture._

The Doctor stared at the two pictures on the wall, until things started to grow blurry. He grabbed a shirt sitting on Rose's bed and buried his head in it, breathing in her fading scent deeply. It was all still the same, the light colored walls, the smell of lavender, the feeling of home. It was too much to take.

Suddenly the Doctor felt woozy. He grabbed his head as it started to pound again. With Rose's t-shirt in his hands he fell to the floor, unconscious.

* * *

The Doctor woke up from a mental nudge from the TARDIS. He groggily sat up, wondering for a second where he was, or how long he was out. Realising with a start he was on the floor of Rose's bedroom, he quickly stood up and went over to the door. Taking one last look behind him, he left her room, locking the door behind him.

He was met by Amy and Rory in the hallway.

"Doctor, we've been looking everywhere-"

"No need to look anymore." The Doctor grumbled, walking past them. He was angry. Angry at the fates for keeping him and Rose apart, angry at his own stupidity for leaving Rose in the other world, and, for no fault of their own, angry at Rory and Amy for being there instead of Rose.

He went straight to his room and slammed the door behind him.

"Doctor!" Amy pounded on the door, but there was no response.

"Amy." Her husband touched her gently on her shoulder. "Let's leave him for a few hours, obviously he has something he needs to work out on his own." Amy eventually acquiesced, trailing behind Rory to their own room down the hall.

* * *

Two hours later, Amy tiptoed to the Doctor's room. Honestly she was frightened. She had seen the Doctor moody before, but never this much. It was if something was bothering him so much the rest of his life was getting in the way.

Reaching his door, she knocked on it quietly.

"Doctor?" She said. No answer. She knocked again. Still no answer. When she tried the doorknob she realized it was unlocked. She slowly opened the door and gasped at what she found.

It was a mess. There were papers scattered everywhere, and the bed covers that were hardly used sat in a heaped pile next to the door. A desk lamp sat broken on the floor.

In the middle of the room sat the Doctor, with his front facing the wall and his back towards Amy. His hair was a wreck, his bow tie lay crumpled beside him, and he was mumbling. Amy couldn't hear what he was saying, but he shook back and forth with each passing word. Finally his voice grew louder and Amy was able to make out what he was saying.

_"Bad Wolf. Blaidd Dwrg. Dårlig Ulv. The end of the universe. Mauvais Loup. Schlechter Wolf. Lobo malo. Rossz farkas, Lupo Cattivo..."_

And on he went, saying Bad Wolf in every language he could think of. When he couldn't think of any more he started over with Bad Wolf. Amy recognized a few from her studies, but many she believed were in alien languages.

Still standing by the door, she said his name again.

"Doctor?" Her voice shook. She had never seen the Doctor like this, ever. He always had a cool head, nothing could faze him, not even a Dalek fleet. But this was different. It must be really bad for him to be like this.

She jumped in fright and squealed when the Doctor quickly spun around at her voice. His eyes were bloodshot, as if he had been crying for hours.

"Rose." He whispered in awe. Then he leapt up. "Rose you came back to me!"

"Doctor?" Amy trembled. "Who's Rose?" Then she saw what was in his hands. In his right hand sat a blue t-shirt, crumpled. In his left hand he held a picture in a frame. A blond woman was smiling back through the picture.

"Rose I knew you always loved me, not that conniving clone." He walked slowly towards her. Amy backed away, afraid what the Doctor might do in his state of mind.

"Doctor, it's me Amy, Amelia Pond, remember?" Didn't she tell the Dream Lord that she was the most important woman in The Doctor's life? But not even that woke him out of it.

"Rose, I should've said it, even now I can't bring myself to form the words. But I can do more than that." Pretty soon he had Amy up against the wall in the hallway outside his room. Her eyes brimmed with tears in fear.

Suddenly the Doctor slammed his body up against Amy's and shoved his lips towards her's. She struggled in the Doctor's grip. She had been a kissogram before, but no one had ever used force against her. In truth it scared her to death. She shoved him backwards on his shoulders with all her might. The Doctor collided with the wall on the other side of the hallway. Suddenly his mind cleared. With tears in her eyes Amy darted away while she had the chance.

The Doctor stood there dazed, his mind slowly clearing from the fog. He quickly reentered his room and locked the door behind him.

He stared in shock at the mess in his room. He walked over slowly and picked up the picture frame that had fallen to the floor. The glass was broken when he had dropped it. He sadly set it back up on the dresser. He covered his eyes with his hands and wondered what the hell was wrong with him.

* * *

Amy ran to her and Rory's bedroom and shut the door.

"Are you alright?" Rory said. Amy spun around and saw him sitting in bed reading a book. Rory noticed the tears in her eyes.

"We have to do something about the Doctor." She said.

* * *

**Wow. After re-reading this I kinda hate the way I wrote it. Jilted and sort of misfocused(but at least I got the point across). I actually think the last few chapters are more structurally sound than the beginning, so it does get better, I promise. **

_**Coming up: Another main character makes an appearance, and the Doctor's companions try to find out what's wrong with him.**_


	2. Her Sanctuary

**Wow! I'm actually really surprised at the response this got! Especially considering how much I don't really like the first few chapters(but I LOVE what I did starting chapter five xD) I'm pretty sure my Eleven/Rose ones do wayy better than my Ten/Rose ones. In fact even my Nine/Rose ones do too. What, is Ten/Rose just too expected? Are Nine/Rose and Eleven/Rose more fun to read because there's not as much? Haha anyway I forgot to mention last time that I will be updating on Tuesdays and Thursdays :)**

**Oh and I forgot to mention that I used Google translator for the Bad Wolf names. Sorry if it offends anybody if it's wrong, you know how accurate Google is :P.**

* * *

**Chapter 2**

_ Amy ran to her and Rory's bedroom and shut the door, locking it behind her._

_ "Are you alright?" Rory asked. Amy spun around and saw him sitting in bed reading a book. He noticed the tears in her eyes._

_ "We have to do something about the Doctor."  
_

* * *

"Yes, he's been like this for two weeks now. No we can't–look, can you just come?" Amy sharply pulled away from the TARDIS' phone up against her ear when a loud _BANG_ rang out on both ends. Doctor River Song brushed off her vortex manipulator and strutted over to the pair.

"Tell me everything, when he started acting strange, what you think he's up to now." After Rory looked at her expectantly, Amy prepared to tell her everything.

"It all started just after the Pandorica and the universe was nearly erased. Ever since then he's been edgy and inattentive, not to mention rude." She paused. "But he hasn't been..._losing it_ until two weeks ago." River twisted her mouth in thought.

"Has he said anything, anything important lately?" Amy threw a glance in Rory's direction.

"...One time he mistook me for someone else." River waited for her to continue.

"Who...?" Rory said, confused when she didn't finish.

"He called me Rose." River thought about this for a moment, then her eyes lit up in inspiration. She ran over to the TARDIS console monitor and swung the screen over.

She rubbed her hand against the TARDIS, silently asking the sentient ship to do this.

"TARDIS, show me Rose." Two words flashed on the right side of the screen: ROSE TYLER, and a picture of a young woman with blond hair rose up on the left.

"That's her, that's the girl in the picture he was holding."

Suddenly the screen changed, and a recording of them started playing.

"Who's that?" Rory pointed at the man sitting next to Rose.

"That's the Doctor." Both Amy and Rory turned to River, confused. River sighed and paused the video.

"The Doctor has this ability, when he's dying. He can change his appearance, as a way of escaping death, called regeneration." She leaned in closer to the screen. "This was one of his earlier regenerations, I haven't seen this one yet." She carefully looked at the man with the wild brown hair and big brown eyes that were definitely belonged to the Doctor. "The inside of the TARDIS can change too." She added as an afterthought. She pressed resume on the video, and the three of them were silent, listening to Rose and the younger Doctor on the screen.

_ They were in the TARDIS, and the Doctor seemed to be working on something while Rose handed him the parts he needed._

_ "I think we're there!" The Doctor said, leaping up and going over to the screen. "Fear, loneliness, they're the big ones Rose. Some of the most terrible acts ever committed have been inspired by them." He flipped a few switches on the TARDIS. "We're not dealing with someone that wants to...conquer or destroy. " He ran back over to the other side of Rose. "There's a lot of things you need to get across this universe, warp drive, worm hole refractors..." Rose stretched her hand out to the Doctor, but he had his head down. "The only thing you need most of all, you need a hand to hold." Finally he saw Rose's outstretched hand and grinned, placing his hand on top of her's._

_"No, no I'm pointing." Rose said, giggling with an infectious laugh. _

Amy smiled with her as the image slowly faded away, and another one took it's place.

This time Rose looked a lot younger, and a different man was with her.

"Is that the Doctor as well?" Rory asked.

"I suspect it was the previous Doctor to that other one." Amy deducted, while River investigated this other Doctor she hadn't seen yet. This Doctor was dressed in leather, his hair cropped short, and blue eyes that twinkled. He looked much older than the previous Doctor.

_ He and Rose were lying on the floor of the TARDIS, laughing._

_"Blimey!" Rose exclaimed._

_ "Are you alright?" The Doctor asked her, standing up._

_ "Yeah I think so, nothing broken." She replied, pulling her way up as well. "Did we make it, where are we?" She gazed at the screen where the Doctor was looking._

_ "I did it! Give the man a medal! Earth, Naples, December 24th, 1860."_

_ "That's so weird." Rose said after a moment of silence. A 'ding' came from the TARDIS. "It's Christmas."_

_ "All yours." The Doctor said, waving his hand towards the door._

Amy could read on her face that Rose was feeling the same excitement as she herself always did whenever the prospect of a new world lay before her.

_Rose stared towards the door, her eyes thoughtful, but her feet unmoving. She was excited, but she had to say something first._

_ "But it's like..." The Doctor lowered his hand and crossed his arms over his chest. "think about it though, Christmas: 1860. Happens once, just once, and it's...gone. It's finished, it'll never happen again." The Doctor turned away from Rose's face, then looked back at her, smiling at the direction her thoughts were going._

_ "Except for you." His smile got bigger. "You can go back and see days that are dead and gone, a hundred thousand sunsets ago...no wonder you never stay still." She said with wonder._

_ "Not a bad life?" The Doctor asked her, as if he genuinely needed to know._

_ "Better with two." Rose replied, grinning with joy._

"I think they cared very much for each other." Amy said as the final image faded away. _No wonder he was afraid to kiss me after he saved me from the stone angels. It would be like betraying her. _She thought.

"Hold on." Rory interrupted her thoughts, raising his hand.

"What?" Amy asked him.

"Listen." The three of them were silent as they listened. It was quiet. Unusually quiet.

"It's the TARDIS." Rory said.

"Yeah." Amy agreed. "Usually the TARDIS is making some sort of noise, like a quiet engine running or the console making noises and such." She looked around. "But it's silent."

"She's silent." River corrected while going over to the main console. She placed her hand on the console, and was surprised to find it warm only a little to her touch. Usually the TARDIS warmed greatly to most humanoids. Suddenly it clicked in River's mind.

"That was hard showing us that wasn't it?" She whispered. "You miss Rose too." The TARDIS hummed in agreement, finally making a noise.

"What happened to her?" Rory said, moving towards River. "Rose, that is. She wouldn't have just left him."

"Maybe she grew old and died." Amy guessed.

"No, then the Doctor wouldn't be like this, pining away for her. This is more recent than we thought." River leaned in towards the console.

"TARDIS, what happened to Rose?" The TARDIS was silent for a moment. Finally two words flashed up on the screen: INSUFFICIENT DATA.

"Isn't there anything you can give us?" River pleaded. The TARDIS seemed to consider this for a moment, before an image of the Doctor standing alone in the TARDIS appeared.

"The TARDIS can only give us videos of people inside the TARDIS or just outside it. Anything farther away cannot be recorded." River explained to Amy and Rory.

The Doctor seemed to be having a one-sided conversation with himself.

_ For a moment he was silent, his face as if he was seeing someone he hadn't seen in a while. Someone he cared for deeply._

_ "Inside the TARDIS." He said to the still air._

"Who's he talking to?" Rory asked.

"Rose." Amy answered somberly. "He's saying goodbye to Rose."

_ "There's one tiny gap in the universe left, just about to close." He took a deep breath. "And it takes a lot of power to send this projection, I'm in orbit around a supernova..." He smiled sadly. "I'm burning up a sun just to say goodbye." He paused. _Amy wished she could hear Rose's reply.

_"Hold on." He said, twisting his sonic screwdriver, and then aiming it towards the TARDIS console and turning it on. _Nothing seemed to change for Amy, Rory and River. _The Doctor was silent, his eyes sorrowful._

_"I'm still just an image. No touch." He said as if interrupting her. _

"He can't even hug her goodbye." Amy said, feeling tears welling up in her own eyes.

_ "The whole thing would fracture. Two universes would collapse." He smiled weakly again. _Amy guessed that Rose probably didn't care. _The Doctor's smile faded as quickly as it had come. He looked around, as if gazing on a new world. "Where are we, where did the gap come out?" A pause. "Norway, right." Another pause. "Dalek?" _Amy inhaled sharply at the Doctor's startled expression, but it seemed to fade with Rose's unheard reply. _Suddenly he smiled sadly again, as if in disbelief._

_ "About two minutes." He half-laughed, half-sobbed, _and Amy's heart broke with him.

_"You've still got Mr. Mickey then." He said, looking out into the distance. "You're not...?" _ _He chuckled softly. "And what about you, what are you...?" He let the end of his sentence drop. "Well good for you." He said, nodding his head._

_ "Rose Tyler, defender of the Earth!" He said proudly, but his voice on the verge of a sob. "You're dead, officially, back home." He frowned."So many people died that day and you'd gone missing... You're on the list of the dead." He paused. "And here you are, living a life, day after day." His sad smile faded. "The one adventure I can never have." A hint of desperation was heard in his voice._

_ "You can't." He said, shaking his head. _Rose was probably begging him not to leave her. Amy couldn't possibly imagine what she was going through.

_"Ah, I've got the TARDIS, same old life, last of the Time Lords." _

_ So he was just as lonely as he is now as he was when he knew Rose._ Amy thought.

_The Doctor was quiet, merely nodding his head._ _Suddenly his eyes filled with a combination of happiness and bitterness rolled into one. _Rory picked up on it faster than the girls.

"She's in love with him."

_"Quite right too." He said, _confirming Rory's deduction._ "And I suppose...if it's my last chance to say it..." He tried desperately to keep his eyes filling with tears. Finally he took a breath, as if preparing himself. _

_ "Rose Tyler...I..." _

_ Suddenly he stopped as his eyes opened in realization and horror. He gasped for breath as a steady stream of tears finally made their way down his face. _

_ "I love you." The words he meant to say to her reverberated in the still air. And he stood, alone in the TARDIS, grieving over the loss of his love. _The three watching were completely silent as his image slowly faded away.

"That's the most horrible thing I've ever seen." Amy said, rubbing at her own eyes. Rory passed her a handkerchief. His eyes were welling up as well. But River stood there silently, her head down.

"Explains a lot though." Rory said.

"Yes, he still loves her, and he needs her." They both turned to River Song, who had remained silent since the recording had ended. Finally she lifted her head up.

"Amy." She said rather loud.

"What?" She replied.

"You!" She exclaimed excitedly. "You brought the Doctor back. When the universe was pouring into your head just a few months ago, it gave you unspeakable powers. You might be able to bring Rose back here!" Amy stepped back.

"No, no I can't, it's not-"

"Amy, look at him!" Rory interjected, pointing towards his room. "He's only going to get worse unless you do something!" Finally Amy agreed with him, so she set her mind up the same as at her wedding when she brought the Doctor back. She closed her eyes and concentrated, but after a few minutes, with nothing still happening, she gave up.

"It's no use guys, I never met her, I don't know Rose enough to bring her back." All three of them were silent. Suddenly River remembered something.

"There was this room the Doctor showed me, in his future, one where he kept mementos of all his past companions. I have a pretty good memory, and I'm sure he never mentioned this Rose Tyler." She twisted her mouth in confusion. "If she was that special to him, she must have a spot of her own in that room." Suddenly, with her mind made up, she began walking up the stairs of the TARDIS.

"Wait!" Amy said, stopping her. "Why are you doing this, I thought you someday had a future with him, one where you loved him." River stopped, her eyes turning upward.

"Me and the Doctor may have had something before, but for one thing, we were never in order, we could never make things work the way it should have. And second, something's happening, something that's changing time. If we don't get Rose back for him the Doctor may never recover from this mental state." She stopped. "I'd rather lose our possible future relationship than to lose him completely." She finally released a breath she didn't realize she had been holding.

"That's very kind of you." Rory said, smiling softly. But River ignored him and continued towards the room.

* * *

"I'm fairly sure this is the room." River said, staring at a white door in front of them. Rory tried the door.

"It's locked." He said, jiggling the handle to demonstrate.

"Here." River pulled out her TARDIS key from her pocket and tried it. The door slowly slid open, revealing the treasures inside. Amy picked up a picture. A dark haired woman stood with a curly haired tall man.

"That's Sarah Jane Smith." River commented, picking up one of Adric's Temporal Mathematics books. After setting it down, she continued to walk down the aisles, taking note of each companion.

"Let's see, Liz, Jamie, Zoe, Grace, Turlough, Ian, Romana – both of them mind you –, Barbara, Mel-"

"What's this?" Rory said, holding up what appeared to be an alien weapon.

"I believe that's a broken hairdryer." River replied.

"It belongs to an 'Adam'." Rory said, flipping up the tag taped to the side. Amy was fingering a dented golden cup.

"Lady Christina deSouza." She read the tag taped to the top.

"Ah, here." River finally said. The two women stopped in front of a soft pink colored door. Rory came up, holding a magnifying glass to his eye. Amy glared at him and sheepishly he put it back. Rolling her eyes as she turned away from her husband, she tried the handle on the pink door but this one too was locked. River tried her key, but strangely it didn't work.

"This key is supposed to work for every door inside the TARDIS." She commented, frowning at her key. "He must have a separate lock for this door."

"I guess we're stuck." Rory said dryly.

"Wait, let me try something." Amy said, leaning up against the door. "Come on TARDIS, we need to see in here, we need to help the Doctor and bring Rose back." Everything was silent for a few uneasy moments, until the satisfying _'click'_ was heard of the door unlocking. Amy smiled. "Thank you." She whispered, pushing the door open.

* * *

The room was pitch black. River flicked on the light switch, and a soft light slowly lit up the room. The three of them gazed around in wonder.

Faint smells of lavender drifted into their noses. The walls were painted a soft sky blue, and the bed covers were bright pink. Various trinkets sat on the shelves from alien planets around the galaxies.

Amy tried to keep herself from grimacing at the state it was in. Clothes littered the floor and the bed was unmade. One dresser drawer was open, revealing the objects inside and those hanging off the side. Perfume bottles and makeup items littered nearly every available space.

It was clear that the owner of the room had not planned on departing any time soon.

But despite the mess, it was an orderly mess. As if it had been left that way for a reason. Nevertheless, Rory started picking up the clothes and laying them in a pile near the dresser by the door. Amy stood stock still in the middle, as memories not her own flooded into her still-affected mind.

_Nights of tears and mornings of laughter, the pictures being hung on the wall. The Doctor and Rose._

One particular memory stood out among the others.

_Rose shut the door behind her, her face a mask of misery. Collapsing on the bed, she let the tears flow._

_ "You said you wouldn't leave me daddy." She sobbed into her pillow. "But you did." _

_ She lay softly crying, alone, until the door slowly opened. The Doctor stood in the hallway silently, gazing at his companion. He lowered his head sadly. Coming into the room, he sat on the bed next to Rose. She barely noticed his presence, but the Doctor leaned over and pulled Rose into his embrace. _

_ She softly cried into his shoulder, gratefully accepting his comfort. She grasped the leather-clad arm as if it would suddenly disappear as her father did. He held her there until her tears turned into stifled gasps of breath._

_ "I'm sorry." He whispered. Rose turned her tear-stained face up to his. Those bright ice-blue eyes showed just as much pain as she was feeling._

_ "I know you didn't mean it, what you said."_

_ "No, not just that." Rose rested her head back on his shoulder and the Doctor laid his head on top of hers. "I'm sorry...for everything." Both of them were silent, taking comfort in the other's embrace, until finally they fell asleep on Rose's bed, still holding onto each other._

"Amy." Rory shook her shoulder gently. Surprised, she turned to look at her husband. "Are you alright?" His eyes searched her face.

"Yeah, I'm fine." She said quietly. "This place, it feels special." She paused. "It feels like home."

The two of them looked over at River who had picked up a softball sized orb. The outside was clear, showing the colored gears on the inside.

"From the planet Fellieau. A child's toy." She pressed a button and little lights shone all around the sides and the inside spun like a top. A soft cheerful tune played from it. She set it down on the dresser where it slowly shut down.

"Feeds off humanoid energy for it to work." She chuckled quietly. "Never needs batteries." Amy stuck her hand out. River picked the orb back up and passed it to her. Amy held it in both hands, and the wheels on the inside spun up again. As the melody filled her head another memory came.

_ "Don't you just love it Doctor?" Rose said excitedly, laying the orb on the dresser and keeping her hand on top of it. She watched it with marvel sparkling in her eyes as it spun around underneath her palm._

_ The Doctor came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. Rose sighed and leaned into his thin, pinstriped frame._

_ "Thank you Doctor." She whispered. "That was the best shopping trip ever!" Suddenly she straightened up and tossed the orb upward. The wheels and lights spun even faster as it flew into the air. "This will make a great present for my cousin Todd. His birthday's next week."_

_ "As long as you don't tell him it's from Fellieau, a planet thousands of light years away from Earth."_

_ "Of course." Rose chuckled. " I can't wait to see the look in Todd's eyes when I give him this. He's only four you know. We just have to visit my mother first, hope that's not going to take too long."_

_ "Oh yes, you would think just after that whole mess with Chloe and the Isomorph that you wouldn't want to reestablish your own relationship with your mother." He commented dryly but with a teasing sound in his voice._

_ "Oh shut up!" She slapped his shoulder lightly. His brown eyes twinkled with mischief. Rose grinned, before throwing her arms around the Doctor._

_ "I couldn't ask for anything better, traveling with you."_

"She never got a chance to give this to little Todd." Amy said, a tear slipping from her eye. The orb slowly changed within her hands. The lights and wheels spun to a stop, as if thrown into a depression. She cocked her head at it strangely.

"It only works off of positive human energy...when one wants to see it spin." River explained quietly, coming up and taking the orb from her, returning it to its' place on the dresser. Rory came up and put his arm around Amy's shoulder. She quickly turned around and hugged Rory, needing to feel someone else there in the midst of the overwhelming feeling of loneliness.

"It's too much." She whispered, crying softly into his shoulder. "Too many memories." Rory was amazed how Amy could even see memories that weren't her own. But yet, there were many things that Rory could never hope to figure out about his wife.

But Amy was strong. In about a minute her eyes were clear and her mind set.

"We're going to get Rose back for the Doctor. I'm sure I can do it now."

"But let's get out of here before the Doctor finds us first." Rory said, his heart quickening in fright at the thought of a furious Doctor finding them here in Rose's sanctuary.

"Just one more minute." Amy said, before closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, trying one last time to inhale every scent, every memory, every single thing that this place held about Rose Tyler.

_"There's me."_

_ "The world doesn't end because the Doctor dances!"_

_ "Everywhere we go, two worlds following us: Bad Wolf."_

_"I am the Bad Wolf._ _ Everything must come to dust. All things. Everything dies."_

_ "I can see everything. All that is. All that was. All that ever could be."_

_ "That was our first date."_

_ "O__ch aye, I've been oot and aboot— Hoots, mon!"_

_ "I thought you and me were— Well, I obviously got it wrong. I've been to the year 5 billion, right, but this... Now, this is really seeing the future. You just leave us behind."_

_ "Is there any other way to go daddio? Straight from the fridge man!"_

_ "Everyone leaves home in the end."_

_"Yeah but stuck with you...that's not so bad."_

_ "I love you!"_

_ "Right, now we're in trouble. And it's only just beginning."_

_ "I've got you, it missed you, look! It's me, Doctor." _

_ "No, but I spent all that time trying to find you, I'm not going back now!" _

_ "But... it's still not right! 'Cause the Doctor's... still you."_

_ " When I last stood on this beach, on the worst day of my life, what was the last thing you said to me?" _

_ "2005 January the First."_

But Amy's eyes popped open in terror as the door behind them slammed open.

* * *

**I know that was rather cruel wasn't it? Also, if you don't agree with Amy having special mind powers, well deal with it. It will be explained later in the story.**

_**Next: The Doctor is beyond furious. What will he do? And Amy attempts to get Rose back. Will it work?**_


	3. Bad Wolf

**Wow! Ten reviews for one chapter, I don't think I've ever gotten ten at once! (haha does that sound pathetic?)**

* * *

**Chapter 3 - Bad Wolf  
**

_Amy closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying one last time to inhale every scent, every memory, every single thing that this place held about Rose Tyler. But her__ eyes popped open in terror as the door behind them slammed open._

Amy was afraid to even turn around. Rory gasped at the Doctor's sudden entrance. River had backed away, never seeing the Doctor this angry before.

The Time Lord stood there, quivering in outrage. They were there, in her room, in _her _special place. It was if her sacred tomb had been defiled.

"Get. Out." He simply said, his eyes flashing dangerously. River, Rory and Amy sped out of the room before he could do anything else.

* * *

After they had left the Doctor collapsed to his knees in the middle of the room. Looking around, he angrily grabbed Rose's clothes that Rory had put into a pile by the door. He tried placing them in their previous positions, but he became frustrated. He couldn't remember! But he needed her room perfect, just as it had been before! Before she had nearly fallen into the void, before those horrific three long years without her, before she left with that clone!

He became so frustrated he grabbed the orb sitting on the dresser and flung it against the wall, where it shattered in a thousand pieces. The gears wound down for the final time.

Yes, he knew full well she hadn't been able to give it to Tony...no, Todd...

_"No you plum, we named him Tony."_

He shouted and slammed his fist into the wall. Suddenly the headaches came again, this time much worse than ever before, in fact they were excruciating. And for the second time that day, he collapsed unconscious in Rose's room.

* * *

"That was fairly unpleasant." Rory grimaced as the three of them made their way into the console room.

"I've never seen him that upset before." River said. Amy ignored them and stood completely still next to the TARDIS console. She placed a hand on it.

"Help me with this one girl." She whispered. She then concentrated on everything she knew about Rose Tyler. _The pink heels, the edible ball bearings, the lemon scented shampoo, Todd, brown eyes and bleached-golden hair._

_"Better with two!"_

"Rose Marion Tyler." Amy said, her mind swirling with images. "I bring you back, not just for our own sake, but for the Doctor's as well. The Doctor needs you!" She set her mind up the same way at her wedding when she had brought the Doctor back. Except this time she concentrated a million times harder. Her body, her life force, her mind and will all dissolved into bringing Rose Tyler back to this universe.

"The Doctor needs you!" She shouted again. Suddenly she collapsed to the floor.

"Amy!" Rory yelled, rushing over to her. "Amy!" He shouted again but she couldn't hear him. He checked for a pulse and found none. "No!" He cradled her lifeless form in his arms.

Amy Pond Williams was dead.

* * *

Rory was heartbroken. He had waited 2,000 years for this woman, and she was dead within a minute. His wife had died trying to save the Doctor. He sobbed into Amy's long ginger hair, inconsolable. River stood there silently mourning as well.

Suddenly the air around the three of them started sparkling and swirling as a great wind passed around them. Amazingly, a form started to appear in front of them. A figure with blond hair.

"It's Rose." Rory said, looking up.

"Rose Tyler." River gasped.

Finally Rose stood there in the TARDIS, for a moment gazing around with a startled look in her eyes. Upon seeing Rory and Amy, she nodded in understanding. She walked over to Amy and leaned down. Placing her hand on her forehead, Rose whispered.

"Amy Pond, for your sacrifice, your life shall be given back to you." She placed her other hand onto the TARDIS, and the console opened. A golden force drifted out and ran through Rose's eyes. She was the Bad Wolf in human form once again.

"I give life." She said. The golden tendrils ran from her hand into Amy's head.

Amy slowly opened her eyes, furrowing her brow in confusion. She saw Rory's eyes fill with tears of joy, she saw River smiling, and she saw–

"Rose." She croaked, her voice weak.

"You did it Amy." Rory said, hugging his wife. Rose released her hand from the TARDIS and the Bad Wolf once again went back into the TARDIS, where the console shut closed behind it.

* * *

Meanwhile, the Doctor's eyes flashed open. Another presence was within his mind. One so familiar...but he couldn't remember. Also he felt a secondary link in the midst of the first one. He got up out of Rose's room and ran to the console room.

He skidded to a stop as he saw a figure he thought he would never see again.

"Rose." He whispered, not trusting his own voice to say the exact words that were on his mind. That presence in his head...it was the presence of a human touched by the time vortex...Rose. She grinned, seeing the Doctor staring at her, flabbergasted.

And they ran for each other.

Rose leapt into his loving embrace, wrapping around him with all her strength.

"Rose. Rose." The Doctor repeated over and over. "You came back to me." He held on to her tight, as if she would suddenly disappear again.

"My Doctor." She merely said. And that was enough. The Doctor released her and suddenly drew his lips to hers.

Joyful passion coursed between the two who had been apart for so long. After a minute they broke apart slowly, each savoring the sweet flavor of the other's lips. From somewhere inside, laughter bubbled up inside him. The Doctor picked Rose up and spun her around as if she was lighter than a feather. Words were unable to describe what he felt: Joy, happiness, relief, utter bliss. He never could've imagined this day happening in his wildest dreams. Rose laughed happily along with him, marveling at his gentle strength. He stopped spinning her around and set her down lightly on her feet.

He ran his hand over the side of her face wet with tears. Rose leaned her head into his warm hand, closing her eyes.

"Don't ever leave me again Rose Tyler." Rose opened her eyes.

"And don't _you_ ever leave me again Doctor."

"About that Rose, I'm sorry I-"

"Doctor." Rose interrupted.

"Yes?"

"Shut up." She threw herself back into his arms, letting their lips connect again.

Gently, the Doctor's tongue asked permission to enter. She willingly opened her mouth, letting his tongue explore every corner of her mouth. She sighed deeply, never wanting this moment to end. The Doctor's arms slid around her back, memorizing every curve, every detail of Rose Tyler, something he should've done years ago.

Amy and Rory looked on in contented amusement, while River sighed. She wasn't regretful for bringing Rose back for the Doctor, she had never seen him this happy before, but she felt an intense sadness, feeling her own future with the Doctor changing.

Suddenly the screen on the TARDIS lit up, and from River's position, she was the only one to see it change. A man appeared on the screen, who frankly, in River's opinion, was gorgeous. The words 'Captain Jack Harkness' and 'Torchwood' appeared above and below the picture., along with a set of coordinates.

River grinned while she set the coordinates for her vortex manipulator.

"Thanks." She whispered, disappearing unnoticed in a flash of light.

* * *

While Rose and the Doctor were still apparently 'occupied', Rory tended to his wife.

"Are you sure you're alright?" He said, pulling her up. She was unsteady on her feet and her eyes were a bit unfocused, but she glared at her husband.

"If you say that one more time I may just have to kill you myself." She saw Rory wince and immediately felt guilty. "I'm sorry Rory, I didn't mean it like that."

"I know, I'm just glad you're okay." He hugged her.

"We did it." Amy whispered in his ear. "We made the Doctor happy again." They both grinned at each other. Rory and Amy glanced at the Doctor and Rose, quickly deciding to become 'occupied' as well.

* * *

The Doctor and Rose were unwilling to part at the moment, but they knew they both had questions that needed to be answered.

So, as if on a double date, the four made their way to the library, with Rose leaning into the Doctor's embrace, and Amy with her arm around Rory for support, still weary from her near death experience.

"Hold on." The Doctor said, stopping . "Wasn't there someone else here a minute ago?" Amy and Rory stared at him incredulously for not noticing River Song the entire time she was here. But the Doctor soon forgot his inquiry and again became entranced by Rose's presence.

* * *

Once inside the den, Rory helped his wife into a plushy chair near the roaring fireplace. She closed her eyes as Rory began to massage her shoulders. Rose and the Doctor sat on one of the couches beside them, their eyes not once breaking contact, as if the other would suddenly vanish if they turned their gaze away.

"Please tell me that I'm not dreaming and that you're actually here." The Doctor begged her. Rose laughed.

"I assure you, you're not dreaming, and I actually am here, thanks to the help of your companion." She pointed towards Amy. The Doctor looked at her questioningly. Amy suddenly found herself tongue-tied so Rory explained for her.

"Amy brought Rose back the same as she did you at our wedding." The Doctor's eyes opened wide in shock. He leapt up and ran over to Amy, crouching down in front of her. He placed both hands on her head and moved it back and forth, looking into her eyes.

"That should've killed you, without outside help, last time you had mine."

"Well actually Doctor, it did." Amy said.

"What?"

_"I. Died."_ She spelled it out for him dryly.

"Rose, she did something to Amy, I'm not sure what." Rory interjected. This time the Doctor came over to Rose and inspected her head the same way.

"Rose, is there something you need to tell me?" He raised one of his eyebrows that reminded Rose of his previous regeneration.

"Well, I guess now is as good as any time to say it. I'll start from the beginning." She took a deep breath and prepared to tell her story. "A few months ago, we had been trying to get the dimension cannon to work again, when all of a sudden, one day it just started up." She caught the Doctor's glare but ignored him. She knew it was dangerous to use the Dimension Cannon.

"We had a few of our people at Torchwood test it out, and it really did work. It just wouldn't go to this universe, and we couldn't figure out why." The Doctor stopped her for a moment to explain.

"The universe was being erased through cracks in time. The walls to the universes were crumbling, that's why you could jump through them. But this was the central fixed point between all the other universes. It was being protected, before it was the final universe erased."

"I know." Rose said. "We knew other universes were being erased, and ours was for a time too." The Doctor's hearts nearly leapt in his throat. For a moment in time Rose Tyler never existed...he couldn't bear the thought.

"But we came back. I assume it was on your part, Doctor. If it wasn't for the Dimension Cannon we never would've known we were erased in the first place." She stopped for a breath.

"After our universe came back, the Dimension Cannon quit working again, but I didn't give up hope. After a few...instances I found a new way to link to this universe, the only problem being the extra push that was needed to transport me over here."

"Wait." Amy said interrupting. "When did you find this new link?"

"About two weeks ago." Rory and Amy looked at each other in surprise.

"Doctor, that was when you started going crazy." Amy said. The Doctor turned to Rose.

"Tell me about this link." Rose was confused, but was willing to answer.

"Through memory weaves we gained from the Shansheeth, I was able to establish a connection to the TARDIS, using my memories of everything that had happened to us up until you left us on Bad Wolf Bay to communicate with a mental link."

"No." Amy corrected her. "You never connected to the TARDIS, you connected to the Doctor." Suddenly the pieces fell together in place. The headaches, the nightmares, losing concentration, fainting, and never being able to keep his mind off Rose...it all added up. She had established a mental link in his mind that his brain couldn't handle.

"That's why I could see certain memories as well." Amy continued " You were trying to establish a link to come over through your memories with you and the Doctor, and I was able to pick them up from the Doctor's link with me that we had during our wedding." She gripped Rory's hand, feeling him tense up. Now it all made sense. Rose's eyes lit up with both understanding and guilt.

"I didn't realize I was doing that to you Doctor." She placed her hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize." The Doctor stopped her. "I'm just glad you're back." They hugged again.

"And Amy was the push you needed to get back into this universe." Rory piped up.

"Exactly." Rose added. "There was nothing for me there any more."

"But..." The Doctor struggled with the right words to say. "You had...him. The other Doctor. He still needs you." Rose's eyes began to fill with tears.

"No, he doesn't need me any more Doctor. He's dead." Amy and Rory were completely silent and the Doctor lowered his head in grief. Rose continued.

"...We were being attacked." She sniffed. "We couldn't fight them all off with our small team. It was me and John and a few others against at least thirty. All of us died." She paused, letting her words sink in.

"You...died as well?" The Doctor's heart stopped for a second. "Bad Wolf?" Rose nodded.

"I remember being shot, and a minute later, I was awake again. The attackers were all gone, and John–the clone Doctor–was lying next to me." A few tears fell from her eyes. "I held his hand as he died. His final words were him begging me to find a way back to you. That was four months ago." She stopped and released a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding.

The Doctor came over and held her close, letting her bury her face into his shoulder. There was one thing he still didn't understand though.

"But Rose, you still had so much back there, your family, your job, what..._John_ left for you, why did he urge you so much to come back to me?" Although he was so grateful she was here, he was still afraid of her answer.

Rose suddenly released the Doctor and sat up. She looked deep into his eyes and took a deep breath, preparing herself.

"Because Doctor...I'm pregnant."

* * *

**Le gasp! Surprise twist #1! (of like ten! Lol) And yayy River/Jack! haha always been a secret fantasy of mine(who would dominate who? xD) Yes, I stole the Shansheeth idea from the Sarah Jane episode "Death of the Doctor", and my favorite :D  
**

**Ugh I really hate these first few chapters(especially the next one). I hope you're enjoying them. The only reason I'm posting this is for the end, which I think is really cool. Just keep reading. **

_**Next: Rose has a lot of explaining to do. Also, an old friend appears, and at the end of the chapter, surprise twist #2!**_


	4. Cruel Reality

**So glad you guys approve of River/Jack, I was kinda nervous about it. One reviewer did mention how much they would try to outflirt each other, oh boy would that be fun to see, plus the Doctor's reaction! Lol :D**

**It's going to get really domestic at one point, but there's a very good reason for it, just stick with it 'til the end of the chapter :)**

**Oh and also, I've made a trailer for this video, if you want to see it, either in your reviews or a message to me leave your email. Remember to leave a space in the middle! yaddayaddayadda whatever. com**

* * *

**Chapter 4 – Cruel Reality**

_"Rose, you still had so much back there though, your family, your job, what...John left for you, why did he urge you so much to come back to me?" _

_ "Because Doctor...I'm pregnant."_

The Doctor jumped back as if he had been shocked.

"Y-you're pregnant?" He said, rather loudly, looking at her stomach like it was a ticking time bomb. There was no anger in his voice, just surprise. Still, Rory felt it was their time to go.

"Come on Amy." He pulled her up with him and Amy reluctantly let him lead her out of the library.

"Yeah, I'm four months along now." She removed her jacket so he could see her small bump. "It's alright Doctor, we got married, a few months after _you left us._" She tried to not make the last few words sound spiteful, but was unsuccessful.

"After I left you? Oh please, I just didn't want to interrupt your snog fest!" The Doctor couldn't believe what was coming out of his mouth, but he couldn't stop it. He was just so shocked.

"Snog fest?" Rose growled, standing up. "He finally told me he loved me, something I had been waiting _years_ to hear you say. You left me on Bad Wolf Bay the first time with those words on your lips, and the second time you _still_ didn't have the guts to say them!" Her eyes flashed angrily at his accusation.

"Because I knew...I knew..." He stopped. He really didn't know. A tear slipped down his eye.

"I'm sorry." He whispered, knowing it was the only thing to say. "It was the biggest mistake of my life, leaving you. I never should have." Rose's heart softened towards him. She came up to him but the Doctor suddenly backed away. "But what does that make me? A mere replacement for your husband?" Rose shook her head.

"No, of course not."

"But what if he hadn't died? I would still be here, pining away after you while you guys lived on with your happy lives, raising a family..." He stopped, staring at her stomach.

"Doctor, you know I fell in love with you first, and always. And it was _you_ who told me that you and John were the same person, except you've gone and changed again while I was away." The Doctor ignored her last statement.

"_Except_ he was half-human, which makes your child three quarters human." He turned away, his heart slowly breaking. The child technically wasn't even his.

"Actually Doctor...she's only one quarter human." The Doctor spun back around.

"What? But that's not possible!"

"John ran his own tests, we're sure." She paused. "We think it's because I'm a full Time Lord."

Whatever had been running through the Doctor's mind suddenly ceased. The presence in his mind, he hadn't felt it for so long, but it was the presence of another Time Lord, and the secondary link was the child she carried within her. He hadn't realized it until now.

"Bad Wolf." They both whispered at the same time.

The Doctor turned away from her again, his mind spinning with everything Rose had told him. She came up and put her hand on the Doctor's shoulder.

"One thing I don't get though," She said. "If I died, shouldn't have I regenerated? And what about the baby?" The Doctor thought about this for a moment. He pulled out his sonic and ran it over her body. He examined the results and nodded.

"You're not actually a Time Lady. The Bad Wolf inside you is mimicking the DNA of Gallifreyans. That's why you didn't regenerate, and she must have protected the baby as well. Children were usually loomed on Gallifrey so there's not much information on that."

"Well, whatever I am, John wanted our child to have two Time Lord parents. A proper Gallifreyan home and upbringing, one that he felt he could never give." She sighed. "He never told me but I knew he was working on the Dimension Cannon before he was killed. I'm sure he would've sent me here without his permission if he hadn't died..." The Doctor's face suddenly lit up.

"Do you know what this means Rose?" She shook her head. "I'm and Time Lord, and you're a Time Lady, well, as close as you'll ever be. We'll never be apart again." He placed his hand on her stomach. "Your child is a Time Lady as well." He smiled. "I promise never to leave you again, and to give our daughter the home that she will need as per proper Gallifreyan standards." Rose smiled as her eyes filled with tears of joy.

"Thank you Doctor." She said, embracing him. "That's the greatest thing you could say to me."

"No, it's not." The Doctor replied. Rose stopped, looking at him in confusion. "This is." He leaned over and whispered in her ear.

"Rose Tyler Smith...I love you." Rose grinned.

"And I love you Doctor."

"_And now  
As long as I can,  
__I'm holding on with both hands.  
'Cuz forever I believe that there's nothing _

_I could need but you.  
__So if I haven't yet  
I've gotta let you know..._

_You're never gonna be alone  
From this moment on.  
If you ever feel like letting go,  
I won't let you fall._

_When all hope is gone,  
I know that you can carry on.  
We're going to take the world on,  
I'll hold you 'til the hurt is gone. _

_I'm gonna be there all the way. _

_I won't be missing one more day..." _

_~Nickelback_

* * *

_ And so, months passed and the time came closer for Rose's child to come._

_ Three months after Rose returned and seven months into her pregnancy, Amy had something special of her own to reveal..._

"You're serious?!" Rory cried. Amy nodded, her smile growing bigger as Rory's eyes shined with joy. "Amy!" He embraced her lovingly, his heart soaring.

"I saw the wistful look in your eyes after Rose announced she was pregnant. I also remember how proud you were of what we had accomplished in the Dream World so long ago." They both were silent, thinking memories of that day. Rory had wanted so bad for the Dream World to be the real one. To have a family, to have a symbol of their love to each other in the form of a child...only to have his hopes dashed away by the Dream Lord. But now his dreams seemed to be coming true again.

The Doctor came up to the proud couple. He hugged Amy, remembering the day they met very vividly.

"Oh little Amelia Pond, seems like just yesterday you were frying me bacon, now look at you!" They both laughed.

The Doctor sensed Rose's presence both through their new link as Time Lords, and also her footsteps betraying her condition. He felt her place her hand on top of his. Looking over, he saw she was glowing with the seven month child inside of her. He couldn't keep the pride out of his smile.

"Come on Rose, and you too Amy, you both need check-ups to see how your little ones are doing." He waved towards Rory. "You better come along too mate, you need to see what Amy's going to be like in the next few months." Rory groaned and Amy slapped his arm in reply.

"Oh stop it, I won't be as bad as Rose." To which Rose slapped Amy's arm lightly. Then all four of them burst into laughter. It felt so good to be happy again after so much heartache in their lives.

* * *

_Two months later..._

"Look at me, I'll never fit into these jeans again!" Amy cried, staring at her ever-growing stomach, horrified at not being able to wear her favorite jeans.

"Oh please, you're tiny compared to me." Rose frowned. "I haven't been able to see my own feet for two months. How can something you can't see hurt so bad?" She sat down upon the bench in the enormous wardrobe of the TARDIS and tried to massage her aching feet.

"I can't tell you that yet, I can still see mine." Amy laughed looking down, but Rose stuck her tongue out at her.

"Very funny." She placed a hand on her stomach as the tiny Time Lady within her started kicking. "Ow." She winced at an extra hard kick. Amy looked on enviously.

"At least you can feel her. I can't wait to feel mine as well." She placed a hand on her own small bump and willed the baby to reply, but it remained still. She sighed, removing her hand. She looked up and saw Rose's startled expression.

"What?"

"It's more than kicking." Her face clearly showed pain. "You better get the Doctor."

"Have you ever delivered a baby before?" Rose cried.

"I'm a Doctor!" was his only reply.

"Answer the question!" She was getting frustrated.

"Well...no." He turned towards Rory. "But Rory's a nurse." Rory gave a half-smile, but worry shone in his eyes.

"I've delivered babies before, but never without the help of a doctor." The Doctor pointed to himself but Rose shook her head, before crying out in pain.

"If my mum was here she could help," Rose gasped. "She's had a bit of training as a mid-wife."

"Not surprising." The Doctor muttered. Suddenly he had an idea.

"Hold on for me Rose." He ran to the console room as quickly as he could, not willing to be away from Rose for as long as possible.

The TARDIS landed as gently as she could, and the Doctor rushed out the door. He frowned. He never liked Torchwood, but it had to be done. If he got his time lines right, she should be here...

"Martha!" He cried, spotting her inside the Hub. Martha frowned, not recognizing him. "It's me, the Doctor!"

"Doctor? But..."

"No time to explain now, Rose is in labor, come on!" He dragged Martha away from the Hub and back towards the TARDIS. Hearing the urgency in his voice, Martha decided to ask her questions at another time. Tosh and Owen looked at each other in shock.

Back behind them, unnoticed, were River Song and Jack Harkness, completely oblivious to the rest of the world. And what they were doing was..._well, let's leave that up to your own imaginations._

"This way Martha!" The Doctor ran so fast that Martha could barely see where he was going. Despite the situation, she couldn't help but wonder who this man was and why the TARDIS looked so different on the inside.

She entered the med bay and saw a man and a pregnant woman standing beside another very pregnant woman, Rose.

"This is Rory and Amy, and Rose you've already met, Rory, Amy, this is Dr. Martha Jones." The Doctor explained.

"Actually it's Martha Smith."

"Stop with the introductions and do something useful!" Rose cried, clearly in pain.

"Yes, of course." The Doctor seemed frazzled and was shaking with nervousness.

"Doctor, first of all, I need you to wait outside." Martha urged him.

"What?! I'm not leaving her." Rory came up to the Doctor.

"She's right Doctor, we can handle it. Amy, go with him." The Doctor moved towards Rose, gazing at her one last time.

"I'll...be okay Doctor, you can go." She half smiled, half winced at him. Reluctantly, the Doctor left the room with Amy by his side.

* * *

"How long does it take?" The Doctor said, circling the room again.

"Doctor, if you keep pacing you're going to wear a hole into the floor!" Amy had grown weary just watching him.

"But what if something's wrong? It's been over five hours, Time Lady deliveries don't usually take that long, even though naturally born children were rare then..."

"Well, Rose isn't exactly your ordinary Time Lady. You can't go in there!" The Doctor's eyes flashed at the command.

"I'm going to go in there, they might need my help." He walked over to the door, but as soon as he motioned to open it, Martha opened it for him and came out.

"Well?" The Doctor asked, exasperated.

"You're a father! Congratulations!" The Doctor shouted for joy and hugged Martha, picking her up off the ground.

"Save it for Rose, Doctor, she's waiting for you."

"Oh...right." The Doctor released Martha and hesitantly entered the room.

Rory was standing there, wiping a wet cloth across Rose's forehead. He smiled when he saw the Doctor and left the room.

The Doctor moved slowly towards Rose and the bundle in her arms.

"Come here, Doctor, she won't bite." There were lines under her weary eyes but they sparkled with pride. As he approached Rose pulled the cover farther back so the Doctor could see her daughter's face.

The Doctor gasped. She was gorgeous. A perfect epitome of his past self and his darling Rose. The tiny child had a mop of dark blond hair, sparkling brown eyes and the Doctor could tell by her cheeks that she would get freckles in a few years. He was in awe.

"She's so beautiful Rose."

"John would've been so proud." Rose whispered, causing the Doctor's heart to ache a little. But she smiled and looked up at him.

"Why don't you name her?"

"Me? But I'm not-"

"You're as much the father as John is, come on, name her." She insisted.

"I couldn't–"

"Please. I need you to be a part of this family, it's what John wanted most for us."

"Okay." The Doctor stared into his new daughter's face until a name flashed up in his mind.

"Jacelynetorianlaonda." Rose looked at him blankly.

"Time Lady names tend to be long, but can be shortened." He explained, remembering his old friend Romana's ridiculously long name. "Jacelyn?" He offered. Rose smiled.

"I love it." She looked down at their daughter. "Jacelyn."

* * *

An hour later, the Doctor quietly opened the door to find Martha, Rory and Amy chatting quietly.

"Rose is sleeping, she deserves it." Martha stood up, glad to finally have a chance to absorb everything new. She stood in front of the Doctor, staring into his eyes.

"It's me, Martha." He grinned at her.

"How am I supposed to know?" She teased him, wondering how he would reply. She already knew it was him, having talked to the Ponds while the Doctor was with Rose.

_"Oh you're on Martha Jones."_ He thought.

"Well, I know your mother's name is Francine, you work for Torchwood and/or UNIT, depending on what year we landed, you kissed a bloke named Riley(and don't think I didn't see that), you've been engaged to both a Tom Mulligan and a Mickey Smith, and-

"Alright alright I believe you!" Martha said, trying not to look embarrassed. Amy and Rory just laughed.

* * *

Later that day the Doctor found himself at Rose's bedside, where she had been moved to from the Med Bay a few hours ago. She was still asleep, weary from her previous labor. Little Jacelyn cooed softly from a crib set by the bed. The Doctor moved slowly to her and stared at her, entranced. She reached her fingers up towards him and he gladly let her clasp them around his index finger. He grinned in pure joy. Even though he hadn't physically fathered the child, he still felt like her father, something he hadn't been able to call himself for many, many years. And Rose had done that for him.

As if sensing his presence, Rose seemed to stir into wakefulness. Her eyes fluttered open and she smiled, seeing the Doctor watching Jacelyn. The Doctor noticed she was awake and came up to her.

"How are you feeling?" He spoke quietly.

"Better." She replied. She opened her eyes wider as she came fully awake. She frowned as she remembered a horrible thought that had occurred to her just before she went to sleep.

"I can't travel with you." She said bluntly. All the color drained from the Doctor's face.

"Why?" He was crushed. Why didn't she want to travel with him?

"No, it's not that I don't want to, I do, more than anything. I've got nothing else now but you. It's just...it's just, I have Jacelyn to take care of now, and we'd only hinder your life of danger and adventure."

"Oh Rose." The Doctor shook his head while he sat down next to her on her bed. "You assume that's the only thing I do now." Rose looked at him strangely.

"Umm, yeah it is. Basically."

"Well, yes." The Doctor grumbled. "What I meant what you assume that's the only thing I _can_ do."

"Doctor, what are you saying?" She asked frustratingly.

"I've taken care of the universe more than enough times. It's time I deserve to put _us_ first. And I can be a father. Sure, it might take a few years, but we can always go back to adventuring when Jacelyn's old enough." He went over to her crib and lifted her up gently into his arms. "You underestimate how quickly Gallifreyan children mature. By six she'll be able to start learning how to fly the TARDIS."

"I'm still stuck on 'I can be a father.'" She replied, her eyes having a far-off look to them. She sat up and the Doctor carefully placed Jacelyn in her arms.

"It feels like a dream." She whispered. The Doctor merely nodded his head. She couldn't have been more correct. Just a short while ago he was all alone, with nothing for his future. Now he had everything.

"Thank you." He said suddenly.

"For what?" Rose replied.

"For giving me a daughter, a life to live, and for coming back to me." He leaned over to kiss her. She smiled against his lips, and the Doctor knew life would never be the same.

* * *

_Nine Years Later_

"Jacelyn, Tanya, Lohrna, and Treynohl, out here now!" The Doctor shouted in mock-anger, adjusting his bow-tie. He nearly fell over as his four children bowled him over. "You guys are all late for your TARDIS flying lesson!"

"It's not our fault!" Jacelyn the oldest replied. At her stature of nine years, she basically could fly the TARDIS blind-folded, but she was an invaluable help to her younger brothers and sister.

"Yeah!" Little Treynohl piped up. "Mum was teaching us how to make apple scones!" He was only three but he acted older than his age. The Doctor spluttered at his statement.

"Apples? She knows apples are evil!"

"Evil apples, evil apples!" Twins Lohrna and Tanya cried. The six year-olds loved to shout.

"Alright, everybody settle down, Aunt Amy's here!" The four children turned and exclaimed in excitement. The Doctor gave a sigh of relief as Rory and Amy with their two girls Melody and Sasha walked inside the TARDIS and herded his children out.

Later that day everyone gathered in the library, the children playing quietly on the floor while Rose and the Doctor caught up with Amy and Rory.

"So how long has it been?"

"Two years since we saw you last." Amy replied to Rose's question. "Melody just started school. Wants to be called Mels now, no idea why."

* * *

The Doctor leaned back and looked at everything: his wife, his children, his best friends. It felt surreal, and strangely he couldn't remember what had happened the last few years.

Suddenly birds began chirping in his head, and all the color drained out of his face at the familiarity of it.

"Doctor?" Rose cried. "Doctor, are you alright?" He didn't answer. With a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, he tried to get up but instead collapsed to the ground, unconscious.

* * *

The Doctor awoke in what looked like the middle of a battle. He was in some sort of building, or a ship, he couldn't tell, and there were hooded men everywhere.

He heard a scream, and instantly knew who it was.

"RORY!" He turned and saw Amy sobbing and grasping a white cloth.

_"Rose!" _His mind instantly thought. Where was she? And why was Amy crying? He realised with a startling blow that Rose wasn't here.

She was in the other universe.

_"The Dream Lord."_ He gasped. Who else could it be? He had heard those damn birds, teasing those caught who could not change what was happening to them. With that came a horrible thought.

_ "Rose might not have come back to me."_

He winced as the birds' song grew strong and he fainted again.

* * *

**I KNOW I KNOW I'M SO SORRY! *ducks at rocks thrown* I'm so mean! **

**_So was it all a lie? Did Rose really come back?_ READ ON!**


	5. Real or Not Real?

**So, I know probably a lot of you are really mad at me for doing that to the Doctor and Rose. But as I said before I started this story in 2010, and I had stopped it just after the part where the Doctor is teasing Martha...and I couldn't figure out an end. Having a villain changes the dynamic of this story and adds drama and dimension. So keep reading on!**

**Obviously, the Dream Lord is played by Toby Jones, previously seen in "Amy's Choice".**

**Kind of longer chapter today. As if you thought it couldn't get any more unexpected, we have another surprise twist at this ending(I'm good at this! Lol)**

* * *

**Chapter 5 – Real or Not Real?**

_ The Doctor leaned back and looked at everything: his wife, his children, his best friends. It felt surreal, and strangely he couldn't remember what had happened the last few years._

_ Suddenly birds began chirping in his head, and all the color drained out of his face at the familiarity of it._

_ "Doctor?" Rose cried. "Doctor, are you alright?" He didn't answer. With a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, he tried to get up but instead collapsed to the ground, unconscious._

_ The Doctor awoke in what looked like the middle of a battle. He was in some sort of building, or a ship, he couldn't tell, and there were hooded men everywhere. _

_ He heard a scream, and instantly knew who it was._

_ "RORY!" He turned and saw Amy sobbing and grasping a white cloth._

_ "Rose!" His mind instantly thought. Where was she? And why was Amy crying? He realised with a startling blow that Rose wasn't here. She was in the other universe._

_ "The Dream Lord." He gasped. Who else could it be? He had heard those damn birds, teasing those caught who could not change what was happening to them._

_ With that came a horrible thought. _

_ "Rose might not have come back to me. "_

_ He winced as the birds' song grew strong and he fainted again._

* * *

This time the Doctor found himself in a cold, white room. He stood up and noticed two screens on the other side of the room, paused at what turned out to be part of the two lives he had just experienced. In the second screen was what he had just come from: Amy sobbing and Rory holding her, his eyes shining in grief. But it was the first screen that caught his attention. He saw himself as he sat beside Rose, Amy and Rory, and on the floor sat their children, their darling, beautiful children.

And he suddenly couldn't remember their names.

"They look just like you don't they? Well, three of them anyway." The Doctor spun around and saw the Dream Lord standing behind him.

"No!" He went to lunge at him but suddenly found himself strapped in a chair. He pulled on his bonds tightly, yelling out in frustration.

"Simmer down Time Lord." The Dream Lord fixed his bow tie and walked past the Doctor and over to the first screen.

"Jacelyn doesn't look anything like you. How can you have the guts to call you her father?"

"She knows who her real father is." The Doctor replied, anger all over his face.

"A half-human mongrel clone of yourself who couldn't even regenerate?" The Doctor turned his head away, refusing to acknowledge the statement.

"This isn't happening." He said instead.

"Oh but it is."

"Why don't you just leave me and Rose alone?"

"No, you see, I can't do that. Last time I was too easy on you. Of course you would destroy both worlds, neither of them held any pleasure for you." The Dream Lord turned to face him. "This time you must choose between a life with the woman you love," he pointed to the first screen. "Or the world you suspect to be true: friendless, hopeless, loveless."

"I'm not playing your childish games!" The Dream Lord interrupted him by letting the first screen play. The Doctor watched in bittersweet awe as his children grew up, had lives of their own. The most painful part was seeing that he would always have Rose by his side.

He lowered his head in grief. All the signs were there from the moment she came back to him, even before then.

_"I used a memory weave to get back here."_

_ "It feels like a dream."_

_ 'His hopes were dashed away by the Dream Lord.'_

_ 'But now his dreams seemed to be coming true again.'_

_ 'Everything felt surreal.'_

It was just too good to be true. Nothing had ever gone right for him. After his stupid mistake of leaving Rose with his clone he had condemned himself to a life of loneliness and misery. But had he really deluded himself nine years ago by believing Rose had actually come back to him? Amy had special mind powers indeed. Now he could see how ridiculously impossible it all was.

"Please, don't do this." The Doctor begged his evil counterpart.

"Too late." The Dream Lord sneered. "Now it's up to you. Do you keep living the life you've always wanted, always suspecting it's a lie, or live on alone and forgotten?" Without waiting for him to answer, he snapped his fingers and the Doctor began to drift off to sleep. He leaned up close in front of his face. "There's no impeding danger this time." He said as the Doctor's eyes began to close. "But make your choice quickly, else you will come to regret it."

* * *

"Doctor? Doctor!" The Doctor opened his eyes to see Rose – his Rose – leaning over him, her golden-brown eyes filled with concern. Upon seeing him awake, she began to relax.

"What...what happened?" The Doctor said, for some unknown reason not wanting to take his eyes off her face.

"You blacked out there for a minute." She helped him sit up and he noticed they were in his – their bedroom. "Gave us and the kids a real fright."

"Kids?"

"Yeah, Amy and Rory took them outside for a bit after we got you in here." She frowned at the confused look on his face. "Why do you look like you don't remember our kids?" Suddenly the Doctor leapt forward and grabbed her shoulders. She yelped in surprise.

"What did I say when we first met?" He asked her.

"What?"

"What did I say when we first met?!" He repeated louder, scaring Rose.

"_Run_! You said run!" The Doctor's grip on her relaxed slightly."Doctor, what's going on?" She sat in front of him on their bed.

"I can't remember."

"Remember what?

"The kids, this life, wait...I remember Amy and Rory, and I remember you coming back and–" Suddenly he gaped and clutched his head as new memories rushed in. His life with Rose and their children, it was all there, the past nine years, but it was as if they were shrouded in a grey haze.

"What's wrong?" Rose cried, noticing his skin turn an ashen white.

"I'll tell you what's wrong. This is all wrong." the Doctor said, grabbing his bed covers and throwing them off. "This is way too domestic. A family, friends, you– "

"What are you saying, this was a mistake?" Her eyes stayed on him as he got out of the bed.

"No, that's not it." He said, stopping. "It's just...when did I stop being the Doctor?" Rose stood up and came over to him.

"If you mean the adventuring, we stopped just after Jacelyn was born. You said we'd find some danger again when she got older, well, before the other three came along. "The Doctor was quiet for a moment.

"Everything, it's just...it's too perfect. The curse of the Time Lords, it doesn't just go away, and it never takes a vacation. This is all wrong!" He went over to the door and stepped out into the hallway. Without a second thought he ran to the console room.

He skidded to a stop upon reaching the top of the stairs. There were toys of all shapes and sizes covering the glass floor. A couch had been pulled in by the left side and the TARDIS' console light glowed dimmer, meaning she hadn't traveled through the vortex for a long, _long_ time. As much as the idea pleased him, the evidence sickened him.

"No! No, no, no, no, no! This is all wrong!" The Doctor felt a hand on his shoulder. Turning his head he noticed Rose had followed him.

"Theta, you're talking nonsense." She whispered, her other hand snaking around his neck. "Let's go back to bed while we've got a few free minutes."

"No, I can't I–" Rose suddenly cut him off, shoving his lips onto hers. The Doctor closed his eyes in pleasure, giving in to the kiss. As her hands fumbled with his bow tie his eyes shot open. He stepped back, keeping her at arms' length. Rose looked hurt.

"Rose, I'm sorry I...it's just..." He groaned, hearing birds chirping in his head.

"Doctor!" was the last thing heard before collapsing to the ground again.

* * *

"Doctor, wake up!" The Doctor's eyes flew open. He sat up quickly, knocking over Amy and Rory who were leaning over him. "Oi!" They cried.

"Rose!" The Doctor exclaimed, leaping up and running up the stairs of the TARDIS. Amy and Rory looked at each other strangely, before picking themselves up and chasing after him.

"Rose!" He continued to shout as he ran towards their – his bedroom. Deep in his hearts he knew he wouldn't find her, but didn't want to believe it. He _loved_ her and couldn't accept that she was still in the other universe. That everything had all been made up.

He opened the door to his bedroom, expecting to find her sleeping under the covers, or in the bathroom doing her makeup. "Rose?" He asked meekly, the sinking feeling in his stomach growing worse. She wasn't here. The universe hadn't been kind for once and given him what he wanted most. Her coming back, their life together, their kids, none of it happened or existed. He closed his eyes as a single tear ran down, seeing his daughter's bright brown eyes in his mind, or were they blue...

"Doctor, who's Rose?" Amy asked, stepping into his bedroom, Rory right behind her.

"No!" He shouted, spinning around and grabbing Amy by the shoulders. "Say you remember her! You brought her back, you can do it again!" He shouted, shaking her.

"Ow!" She cried in pain.

"Do it!" He repeated.

"Oi!" Rory yelled, stepping between them and shoving the Doctor off his wife. "She said she doesn't remember. Neither of us do." The Doctor stepped back, a look of shock and hurt on his face.

"What's wrong?" Amy asked, feeling compassionate towards him.

"What...what did we do last?" He asked quietly.

"We just delivered River Song off at the hospital after she...saved your life." The Doctor suddenly remembered. Hitler, the Amy clone robot, River's kiss...

_"Thanks. Guilt."_

"No! It's not right without her here!" Grabbing a glass cube off his dresser, he threw it against the wall where it shattered into a million pieces.

"Doctor, stop!" Amy cried, grabbing his hand as it clutched another souvenir from one of his many adventures. The Doctor turned his head and Amy was surprised to see tears in his eyes.

"Melody and Sasha, those names don't ring a bell?" It was more of a plea than a question.

"No. Now will you tell us what's going on?" The Doctor clutched his head. Amy and Rory caught him as he fell.

"The D-Dream Lord." He was able to make out before he slipped away.

The Ponds looked at each other in recognition and horror.

* * *

The Doctor woke up, not on the top of the stairs as before, but sitting on the couch that had been placed near the console. He noticed six familiar kids sitting on the floor working on a puzzle. Rory was helping them.

"Tea and cakes!" As the children shouted in joy the Doctor turned his head and saw Rose and Amy coming to them with a tray filled with the aforementioned snack food. His eyes widened at Rose's enlarged state. She was pregnant again?

"And your father's awake too!" She cried, setting the tray on an end table near the couch. "You looked so peaceful sleeping there Doctor, we didn't want to disturb you." She sat down beside him and repositioned her enormous stomach in the most comfortable position. Cautiously, the Doctor reached a hand out and placed it on her abdomen. He could feel the life moving inside her. It seemed real enough. Rose grinned and placed her hand on top of his.

"But...but last time you weren't..."

"Weren't what?"

"You weren't pregnant!" He cried, leaping up. "As if you couldn't make this any worse!" He shouted to the ceiling. "All these children, it's like we're rebuilding Gallifrey! Could you wound me any deeper by tearing this away from me?" He continued to shout upwards, ignoring the worried looks of his family and friends around him.

"It's happening again." Rose said, standing up and grabbing his arm. "Doctor, we already went through this a year ago, this isn't part of your imagination, we're really here! Right guys?" She turned to the others and they all voiced their agreement. The Doctor refused to look at them, knowing it would hurt too much. Instead he put his face in his hands.

"Too perfect, it's all too perfect. The life I can never, _ever_ have." He muttered over and over.

"Doctor, please, stop!" Suddenly Rose shrieked in pain. The Doctor whipped around and saw her leaning over, clutching her stomach. Rory leapt up.

"The baby's coming."

"No! It's too early!" She let out an ear-piercing scream, and all of the Doctor's previous thoughts were swept away.

"Amy, get the kids out!" Rory yelled as he positioned Rose on the floor.

"Some-something's wrong!" Rose cried, screaming again. The Doctor went to kneel beside her but suddenly felt dizzy.

"No! Not now, of all times! No–"

* * *

He woke up staring into Rory and Amy's concerned gazes.

"You said 'The Dream Lord' right before you passed out." Amy said as they helped him sit up. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, it was definitely him." He growled in anger. If he saw him now he would kill him for doing this to him.

"Then why didn't he take us too?" Rory asked. The Doctor waved him off.

"No, he doesn't want you two this time. He's only interested in me, as I suspect he always was. Playing with my heart and giving me what I want most before snatching it away in the cruelest way possible."

"So what was in the other world?" Amy questioned him. The Doctor told them in an abridged version about how his former companion Rose came back, how she was pregnant with his clone's daughter, how they started their own family together, and how most everything was perfect for all four of them.

"But she was going into pre-mature labour when I came back here."

"Melody and Sasha." Rory mumbled, a depressed dreamy look on his face. If only their daughter hadn't been taken from them by the Silence, maybe they could have had that kind of life. Not now. Not ever.

"So what do we do?" Amy asked. The Doctor stared at the two of them long and hard, as if concentrating in deep thought.

_"Don't look startled."_ He spoke in their minds. _"I've established a mental link between the three of us so the Dream Lord can't hear us. Just think what you want to say to me."_

_ "I don't know which is more disconcerting." _After a momentRory thought. _"That the Dream Lord is spying on us or you're talking inside our heads."_

_ "Have you always been able to do this?" _Amy thought to the Doctor.

_"I only do it in the most dire of situations." _He replied. _"Now, in case this ever happened again, I made special keys to fool whoever is watching us into believing we're doing something else. Come with me to the console room and follow my lead." _He stood up off the floor of his bedroom and walked calmly out into the hallway and towards the console room, the married couple at his heels.

"Now," he spoke out loud in an overly-fake voice. "I'm thinking of changing the lock on the TARDIS, ever since that incident with the raging Kalahaxi warriors." He reached into his pocket. "So here are your new original handy-dandy TARDIS keys!" He handed a key each to Amy and Rory, keeping one for himself.

_"Now put them around your necks." _He thought to his friends. They did and Rory breathed a sigh of relief.

"Now he'll just see normal every day adventure stuff."

"And what will we really be doing?"

"Finding the Dream Lord's hideout and stopping him. I've had enough of his damn mind games. This ends now!"

"So this isn't the Dream World then?"

"Of course not, blockhead!" Rory started at the Doctor's blatant rudeness.

"How are we going to find the Dream Lord?"

"I'm glad you asked Amy." He leaned over and pulled a lever on the TARDIS console. "You remember when I told you the Dream Lord is possible future incarnation of myself gone wrong?"

"How could we forget?"

"Well, by using my own memories as a guideline, I can track him using this device." He pulled something out from under the console. It looked sort of like an iPAD, but a bit more square and wires poking out the sides. "It's a sort of personal GPS." He explained. "We both have the same memories, so this can track him using my DNA."

"In case you ever lose yourself?" Rory replied sarcastically.

"Yes, exactly. You're finally catching on plastic man!"

"Oi!" He shouted. Amy hushed her husband as he quivered in anger at the second insult that seemed to hit him deeply.

"You know he's still sensitive about the plastic thing." Amy reminded the Doctor.

"I am not!" Rory retorted.

"Are too!"

"Are not!"

"Do you two mind saving the couple stuff for later?" The Doctor bit at them and they shut up. The Doctor pricked himself with a needle and winced, inserting the bloody tip covered with his DNA into the machine hooked up to the TARDIS. "There are more important things to deal with at the moment, like stopping the Dream Lord and repair all the damage he's done. Oh and if I go unconscious again, don't take the keys off your necks, or else he'll see what we're really up to." As if on cue the birds began chirping. "Don't-" He muttered one last time before falling to the glass floor.

* * *

The Doctor jolted awake at a scream beside him. Sitting up he saw Rose laying beside him, clutching a specific area on the right side of her stomach, tears streaming down her face.

"Sorry Doctor," He heard Rory say. "couldn't take care of you both." The nurse dabbed a damp cloth on Rose's head.

"What's wrong with her?" He asked, crawling over and grabbing her hand. She gripped it tightly and looked up at him, her eyes showing just how much pain she was in.

"She's in labour, but the baby's not coming. As if it's not ready to come yet, but still giving her pain."

_"As if on purpose."_ He muttered so Rory couldn't hear. If he ever found the Dream Lord he planned to rip his hearts out for what he was doing to Rose, whether she existed or not.

"Doctor." Rose gasped and he turned towards her face. "I'm so...I'm so sorry."

"Don't be." The Doctor placed a hand on her cheek. "Just fight harder." He begged her. Even if this wasn't real, if somehow she couldn't survive this, he knew his hearts would shatter into a million irreparable pieces. He heard a noise near him and Amy collapsed to her knees on the other side of Rose.

"The kids are in bed." She gasped, showing she had ran the whole way. "How's she doing?" She looked at her husband and he didn't reply, only shot her a grave look. "Come on Rose," She grabbed her other hand. "You can do this, hang in there!"

Nobody noticed the Doctor go unconscious again.

* * *

"She's getting worse." The Doctor said, standing up and straightening his bow tie. "We have to hurry."

"The TARDIS stopped shaking just after you left." Amy informed him.

"Yeah and the GPS...thing beeped too." The Doctor grabbed the screen and spun it around. "Actually it's PGPS, Personal Global Positioning–"

"Yeah we get it. Are we there?"

"Yep. This is where we'll find the Dream Lord's real form. The original."

"We're ready."

* * *

The trio stepped outside the TARDIS and were face to face with enormous dark mansion.

"A bit cliché, don't you think?" Rory muttered. The other two ignored him.

"Geronimo." The Doctor muttered as they stepped inside.

The inside seemed bigger and more vast than the outside, if that were even possible.

"Time Lord technology?" Rory asked. The Doctor nodded.

"We need to check every room until we find something that could help us stop him."

"Should we split up?" Amy asked. Rory shot an annoyed look at her.

"No. Who knows what kind of traps he has waiting in here." They entered into an enormous hallway and began opening doors.

"Nothing here." Amy said, looking inside one of the rooms.

"Nothing here." Rory called from another doorway.

"Nor here." The Doctor slammed his door shut. "We have to keep looking."

When the Doctor opened another door and stuck his head in he saw a familiar white room, the one the Dream Lord had first made himself known in. Inside were two screens and a chair with rope on it.

"You would think he would use something more sophisticated for his dirty work." Amy said, standing behind him.

"Maybe he's not as powerful as he thinks he is." Amy just barely caught him as he slipped into the other world.

* * *

When he woke up the first thing he noticed were tears in both Amy and Rory's eyes.

"No." He whispered. His worst nightmare had happened. He crawled over to Rose and saw she was still breathing, very slowly and weakly. Her eyes blinked slowly.

"There's nothing else I can do." Rory said quietly. The Doctor grabbed Rose's hand and brought it to his lips.

"I'll save you." He whispered, running his hand over her forehead and the side of her face. Rose nodded. "I'll save you." He repeated.

"I...love..." Her eyes drifted shut for the last time. The Doctor leaned over and kissed the top of her head, feeling tears come unbidden from his eyes.

_I'm fallin' apart._

_I'm barely breathin'._

_With a broken heart_

_that's still beatin'._

* * *

As soon as he awoke, he grabbed Amy in his embrace and shuddered. Amy hugged him back tightly.

"I'm so sorry."

"I...I couldn't..." His mind couldn't even process it. Rose being in another world, that he could deal with. Before, she was safe, she was alive. Even if her death was fake, he would never be able to erase what had happened from his mind.

"Doctor, Amy!" They heard a shout from Rory. Wiping his eyes, the Doctor followed Amy towards Rory, who had found a staircase that led downwards into darkness. Rory frowned at his red-rimmed eyes.

"I'm fine." The Doctor reassured him.

"Well then, after you Time Lord." Rory said, stepping back.

At the bottom of the stairs there were a few lanterns hanging on the walls, making the small hallway barely visible. And there were more doors, as well as dirt covering everything and a dank smell mixed in with something else. Amy wrinkled her nose.

"What is that?" She asked.

"Blood." Rory answered, familiar with the scent from his years of being a nurse. "And a lot of it."

As soon as the Doctor had stepped off the last step of the stairwell, he felt a shattering inside his head, as if manacles had fallen from his mind. He knew he wouldn't be returning to the Dream World again, and for that he was thankful.

"He knows we're here now." He said. "Hurry!" They began the task of opening doors again.

Amy grabbed a door at the end of the hallway and threw it open, expecting to see nothing on the other side like the last twenty-seven times. But just as she was about to shut it she saw a small hunched figure in the corner.

"Doctor, there's a woman in here!" She cried, rushing in. At her shout the men ran to the room Amy was in. The Doctor collapsed at her side and examined the figure. Her long dark-blonde hair was covering her features. Brushing it back and taking hold of her chin, he turned the woman's face towards him, already suspecting who it was. He was right.

Rose Tyler.

"What has he done to her?" There were wires inserted in the right side of her head that was up against the wall. Her skin was a pallid grey, and even though she was unconscious, she trembled as if in great pain.

"So she truly was real, he was just exploiting her image so she would do whatever he wanted her to." In anger, he stood up and brandished the sonic screwdriver around the room to see if he could find anything. After a second a machine two feet away from Rose shimmered into existence. Rory jumped out of the way.

"It explains how he put her in the dreams." He moved towards the machine with the intention to destroy it, but a call from Rory stopped him.

"Doctor, there's blood here!" He lifted up her shirt to reveal her stomach, where a pool of blood had gathered. She fought a little bit but the Doctor was able to get her to stretch out and away from the wall so Rory could see what was wrong.

"There's a dagger in her stomach." The Doctor's hearts clenched at the sight. A dagger was buried deep in her side up to the shaft and the wound oozed an unsightly color of blood. He looked back at the machine ruefully.

"It must be keeping her alive." He turned and motioned to the dagger. "Can you get it out?" He asked Rory.

"She'll lose too much blood if I don't have the proper equipment."

"But why would someone do this to her?" Amy yelled. "It's barbaric!"

"Because she wouldn't cooperate and it made the pain in the Dream World all that more real." The trio spun around to see the Dream Lord leaning against the doorway, a wicked smirk on his face. "Hello Amy." She shivered at his cold greeting. The Doctor jumped up, looking like he wanted to rip his possible future counterpart's head off.

"Whoa there, tiger." He said, stepping back. Revealing a panel on the wall by the door, he pressed a button in the middle. Chains suddenly formed around the Doctor's, Amy's and Rory's hands. The Ponds cried out in surprise and the Doctor struggled, yanking his arms to get them free, but to no avail.

"Give up Time Lord." The Dream Lord said. "You're mine now!" He laughed maniacally.

"Why did you do this to Rose?" The Doctor cried, motioning to where she was still lying up against the wall. "If you're really me then you know how much I..._we_ care for her!" The Dream Lord turned his head, as if not hearing him.

"Love. It's a mysterious thing, isn't it? Best as if it's reciprocated. After you _abandoned_ us I thought she would run right into my arms. But she didn't. She stayed loyal to you, and _you_ didn't even deserve it."

"What are you talking about?" The Doctor asked.

"_I've only got one life to live, Rose Tyler. I could spend it with you, if you want. _Ha! Right!"

"No–" The Doctor's eyes widened in horrified realization.

"Do you like this form?" The Dream Lord continued, motioning to his body. "Nah. Me neither. It's long served its' purpose." He pulled up his sleeve to reveal what the Doctor recognized as a shape-shifter. He turned one of the dials and morphed into an exact replica of the Doctor, bow tie, tweed and all.

"No, that's not it." He turned the dial again and morphed into his true form, albeit a bit different than the last time the Doctor had seen..._had been_ him.

He was wearing a long, black trench coat, open to reveal his dark grey suit, and matching black boots similar to the ones his Ninth form preferred. His hair was also black as ink, slicked down to his head. His eyes were rimmed slightly with eyeliner and a slight five o'clock shadow adorned his lower face.

It was the Metacrisis. He grinned and whispered dangerously.

"Welcome to hell."

* * *

**dun Dun DUN!**

_**Next...?**_


	6. Shattered

**The look I'm going for the Metacrisis is sort of a mashup between his characters Barty Crouch Jr.(_Harry Potter_, for the evilness), DI Peter Carlyle (_Blackpool_, for the five o'clock shadow), and Peter (!)Vincent (_Fright Night_, for the eyeliner/hair[his REAL hair lol]) **

**Rated T for moderate language and violence.**

* * *

**Chapter 6 - Shattered**

_**Last Time:**_

_ "Do you like this form?" The Dream Lord continued, motioning to his body. "Nah. Me neither. It's long served its purpose." He pulled up his sleeve to reveal what the Doctor recognized as a shape-shifter. He turned one of the dials and morphed into an exact replica of the Doctor, bow tie, tweed and all._

_ "No, that's not it." He turned the dial again and morphed into his true form, albeit a bit different than the last time the Doctor had seen..._had been_ him._

_ He was wearing a long, black trench coat, open to reveal his dark grey suit, and matching black boots similar to the ones his Ninth form preferred. His hair was also black as ink, slicked down to his head. His eyes were rimmed slightly with eyeliner and a slight five o'clock shadow adorned his lower face._

_ It was the Metacrisis._

_ He grinned and whispered dangerously._

_ "Welcome to hell."_

The Dream Lord/Metacrisis pressed another button on the panel on the wall.

"Up you go." He said with a chortle. Rory and Amy cried out as the shackles on their wrists shot upwards towards the ceiling, carrying them off their feet. With another button the Doctor joined them, all three of them dangling ten feet in the air. Amy kicked her heels angrily.

"Let us down you maniac!"

"You sure do pick the feisty ones." The dark Metacrisis said, running a hand through his black hair. "Remember Donna? Sure you do. Could be Donna's sister right here, and not just because of the hair." He motioned to Amy. She merely glared at him, not understanding who he was referring to.

"I still don't believe you are who you say you are."

"Expected, of course." His clone chuckled.

"Doctor, who is he?" Rory asked.

"My dear Rory," the Metacrisis answered him. "I am a clone of his previous incarnation. The DoctorDonna, the Metacrisis, the worthless copy that's not supposed to exist." At the confused looks of both the companions' faces, the clone clucked his tongue in disapproval.

"Still haven't told them about regeneration. My, my we nearly lost Rose that way." He came over to Rose's huddled figure and stroked her cheek.

"Get away from her!" The Doctor yelled in anger, kicking his feet and trying to get free.

"Why?" The Metacrisis asked, not moving away. "It's not as if she's yours. At least not anymore. You gave her to me a very long time ago."

"I didn't know you were going to do this to her!"

"Enough of the talking!" The clone snapped. "I've got a better idea." He stood up and walked over to the panel, pressing a series of buttons. Blue electric bolts ran up and down the shackles of his three prisoners. Rory and Amy screamed in agony and the Doctor gritted his teeth until the pain passed.

"Music to my ears." The Metacrisis chuckled.

"W-what made you become like this?" The Doctor lowered his head, still breathing heavily from the shock. The clone walked calmly up to him, his boots thudding loudly on the concrete floor.

"You think you deserve an explanation?" The Doctor looked up into his gaze. The clone cocked his head, his cruel brown eyes searching the Doctor's green eyes. "Maybe you do. No matter, I guess I can tell you. After all, I've got all the time in the world." He laughed at his joke before turning his back to them and walking closer to Rose.

"After you left us, you intended for us to fall in love, start a family, live the life you never could etcetera _etcetera_." He spat the last part. "But she didn't. She rejected me, just like you rejected us. Oh, we made love a few times, some things happened, and I came to the conclusion she wasn't good enough for me. _You made me better, now you can do the same for him_, all lies!" He screamed, before stopping. When he continued his voice still shook in rage. "I even found a way back here and she didn't bother to thank me. After I killed a man for this device," he motioned towards his shape-shifter "She found out my plan to take my revenge on you and tried to stop me. Well, let's just say I found a way to keep her on my side." He knelt over Rose and looked at the dagger with mixed emotions.

"I didn't want to do it to her, really. If only she had wanted to help me repay you for what you did to me, to us, then she would have been fine. In fact–"

_"Doctor,"_ Rory called out, using their mental connection. The Doctor didn't look at him, not wanting to attract his clone's attention. _"I removed the wires off Rose's head before the Dream Lo–Meta...crisis? Well, before he came in. Will she wake up?" _

_ "No, she's in the Dream World too deep and in too much pain. Good thinking though, I can try contact her mind so she might be able to work herself out of the dream." _Rose's right side was still up against the wall so the Metacrisis failed to notice the wires were not in her head any more.

"–the dagger won't kill her," the clone kept talking, not noticing. "The wires are keeping her brain active, or I should say, active in the Dream World." As the Metacrisis continued to monologue, the Doctor called out to Rose's mind, hoping to get some sort of response from her. After a minute of trying countless things to get her out of the nightmare she was in, he began to feel that it was hopeless. She was in too much pain – both real and imaginary – to concentrate on anything else. The Doctor turned his head back to the Metacrisis, seeing as he was saying something important.

"The first time you and I met was the trial run of my new powers." Turning back to face the Doctor, he used the shape-shifter to turn back into his Dream Lord form, shorter, bald and wearing tweed. In his nasally voice he continued. "Used Amy as the target so you wouldn't suspect. We had fun didn't we Amy?" Her reply was a few choice unprintable words.

"Tsk tsk." He said as he changed back to the Metacrisis of the Doctor's Tenth form. "Mouth on that one. I did have fun with the pregnancy thing however. Rose really deserves a medal. You actually believed she had died while giving birth to your child, when actually it was a knife in her stomach! In fact, because of your selfishness she's going to die, this time, without you in Dream Rory's arms, before waking up and going through it all again. It will continue, over and over until you consent and join her in Dream Land." The Doctor shook in rage but the Metacrisis ignored him.

"And there you have it. How you betrayed us, and how she betrayed me. I hope you two are happy in the afterlife!" He went to pull another dagger from a sheath on his belt buckle but the Doctor stopped him.

"Let Amy and Rory go, you've got nothing against them. They're just from boring old Leadworth in boring old 2011. Let me take them home and I'll come right back."

"Ha! Like I'd let you even go near the TARDIS! If it wasn't for Rose I'd suspect you'd never come back. But you're not leaving anyway. My plan's in too delicate a spot now to let any of you go.

"And just what is your plan?" The Doctor eyed the blade in his clone's hand. "I thought you were going to stick me like you did Rose."

"You're right. I was being a bit too hasty. Living your life as a copy does that to you. Oh wait, you wouldn't know, would you?" He sheathed the weapon.

"Well, there was that one time–" The clone cut his counterpart off.

"Shut up! I've got a much better plan in store for you. After all, who hates the Doctor as much as himself?" He grinned knowingly as he came up closer to him. "First, I'll send you back into the Dream World, and then, using Rose, you will find out just how much it hurts to lose her. Over and over, endless ways, never ending. Your worst nightmares, forever!" He began to laugh but it came out in a pained gurgle.

Looking down, he was horrified to see a bloody dagger sticking out of his stomach. His body jerked in reaction.

"You son of a bitch." said a voice behind him. The Metacrisis' mouth filled with blood and he dropped dead to the floor, revealing who had stabbed him.

Rose Tyler clutched the hole in her side where she had removed the dagger, blood gushing out over her hands.

As the Metacrisis collapsed the manacles dropped from the Doctor, Amy and Rory's hands. They tumbled to the ground with a thud. The Doctor jumped up just in time to catch Rose as she fell.

"You're stronger than I thought Rose Tyler." He said with a smile.

"D-Doctor?" She coughed up blood. "Is it really you?" Her eyes filled with disbelief.

"It's me, I got you." He grinned, remembering when their roles were reversed and she said the same, but it quickly disappeared as her eyes drifted closed. "No! No Rose, stay awake!" He knew if she lost consciousness now she may never awaken.

"I–I can't." She gasped, a single tear coming down her cheek. "It hurts, so much."

"Hang on, just hang on, my Bad Wolf." He picked her up bridal style and ran to the TARDIS, his companions in his heels.

* * *

As Amy and Rory trailed behind the Doctor, Amy turned to her husband.

"How on Earth did she get enough strength to wake up, let alone remove a knife from her bloody stomach?!" She winced at her unintentional pun. She looked up at Rose's form in the Doctor's arms. Her head lolled on his shoulder and her eyes tried weakly to stay open.

"She must be pretty strong." Rory replied. "Wonder if Bad Wolf has anything to do with it."

* * *

As soon as they reached the TARDIS the Doctor kicked the door open and carried Rose up the stairs and to the Med Bay.

"We're almost there." he said to her. She was getting weaker by the minute. It was a miracle she had lasted this long.

Upon reaching the Med Bay, he slammed a button on the wall and an examination table slid out. As he laid her on it Rory and Amy burst in behind him. The Doctor pulled his hands away and saw they were covered in blood. Rose's blood.

"Let me help." Rory said, coming up to stand beside him. "I _am_ a nurse you know." The Doctor nodded.

"We need to patch up this hole."

"I'll get the stuff ready." As Rory moved away the Doctor leaned down to Rose's face to speak to her.

"I'm so, so sorry, but I can't risk giving you any sedatives, your mind's already been shut down for far too long." The look on his face gave Rose the impression that if he could take the pain for himself, he would without a second thought.

"It's alright." She gasped." I've been hurting for such a long time, a little while more won't kill me...hopefully."

* * *

Nevertheless, Amy could still her her screams of agony outside the Med Bay as the Doctor and Rory stitched her up. She tried to shut her ears but to no avail. She would have left to go explore the TARDIS but she was too curious about this Rose Tyler. To distract herself, she began thinking about all that had transpired in the last few hours.

When the Doctor spoke about Rose, he used a reverent and caring tone Amy had never heard before, which that in itself was surprising because she thought she knew him pretty well and he had never mentioned this Rose. Was it really that painful?

And then he said he had a family with her in the Dream World. That meant he loved her.

This sounded strange to Amy. Just a short while ago she had nursed her own crush for him.

And River Song. Her daughter Melody Pond. Wasn't he supposed to love her?

Amy shook her head wearily. If they were meeting in the wrong order, would they fall in love merely so the time lines would match? Then she came to a startling observation. Did the Doctor pretend to love River Song just to keep the universe intact?

It would make sense. The Doctor always seemed more annoyed than happy to see her. Especially the first time Amy had met River, he had nearly ripped her head off when she told him how to fly the TARDIS correctly.

But not with Rose. The way he looked at her was the way her own husband looked at her. Like he would do anything in the universe to keep her safe and happy, even at his own cost.

Amy gave a sigh of relief as Rose's screams finally quieted down. Another minute later Rory came out, wiping the blood off his hands with a cloth.

"We managed to patch her up." He said. "Now the Doctor's doing a sort of mind-meld thing with her, trying to repair all the damage the Metacrisis had done to her head." He sat down wearily on one of the chairs. "It may take her much longer to recover from that."

"What was making her scream so much?" Amy asked him. "Weren't you just giving her a few stitches?"

"Yes, but the wound was starting to fester. We had to clean it out before she got an infection. Overall not good." Amy winced, before turning to look at her husband. The Doctor's protection over Rose only reminded her of just how alike her husband was to him, and how lucky she was that he loved her, despite all her many faults.

She came up and leaned over him with one hand on his leg and kissed him sweetly. He moaned in pleasure.

"What was that for?" He asked dreamily as she pulled back.

"Oh, nothing." She replied, grabbing his hand and pulling him up. "Say, do you still have that Roman centurion outfit?"

* * *

_The Doctor wandered aimlessly through Rose's head. The most accurate way to describe how he perceived the inside of her head was chaos. Explosions, burning planets, blood and death, and over it all a maniacal laughter that nearly overpowered the Doctor's own sanity. The Metacrisis hadn't hesitated to do anything in his goal to destroy Rose's mind. She had been in his grasp for far too long. And it was all his fault._

_ As the Doctor walked he attempted to repair as much damage as he possibly could, but he had to find Rose's subconscious before she went permanently insane._

_ He jumped as a scream echoed around the area. Running towards the noise, he found a sight that made his blood boil._

_ It was the Metacrisis kissing Rose, and the way she struggled against him it was clear he was about to rape her._

_ "Oi!" He shouted. The Metacrisis let go of Rose in surprise._

_ "Doctor!" She shouted, attempting to run towards him but the clone caught her arm and pulled her back. She yelped as he pulled a knife from his belt buckle and held it to her throat. The Doctor skid to a stop._

_ "Really? Do you have a fetish for blades or something?"_

_ "Don't tempt me to use it." He bared his teeth like a wolf._

_ "How did you get in here?" The Doctor asked, this time calmly, not wanting to make any sudden moves, lest he decide to hurt her again._

_ "You think I wouldn't have a backup plan? A way to get inside her head?" He shook his head, his black hair flipping up a bit. "Really Doctor, it's insulting how much you underestimate me. Since you rejected us I've had more than plenty of time to learn a few new tricks. After all, I_ am _the Dream Lord." He grinned._

_ "Just let Rose go, she doesn't need to hurt any more for you. This is between us now."_

_ "Is that so?" He removed the blade from her neck but kept his arm firmly wrapped around her waist. He brought the knife down and brushed it over her side where the knife had been lodged in her physical body. Rose jerked in fear and remembrance._

_ "Stop, John, please, stop." She begged, tears streaming down her face._

_ "I was only ever John to you, wasn't I?" He leaned over her ear. "Never enough to be the Doctor for you. You want him? Here!" He let go of her and shoved her towards the Doctor. She collapsed him his arms. "It was always him!" He shouted. "And I couldn't do anything about it! Until now." He looked around the area that was Rose's mind. Rose's subconscious screamed and clutched her head as the barren wasteland began to shake violently._

_ "Stop it you bastard!" The Doctor shouted at him. The Metacrisis just laughed._

_ "You're angry aren't you? Angry that I have control of her and you can't do anything to stop me. And once Rose is gone beyond saving, I'll do the same to you. It'll be like Gallifrey burning again, but worse!" He laughed again, and suddenly the Doctor felt helpless. How could he stop him?_

* * *

**Sorry, another cliffhanger! Surprisingly, the next chapter is the last, which will be published on Thursday.**

**Thanks for those who asked for the trailer/video. If you still want it, just message me your email (remember to put a space in the middle) :) Also, if I haven't given it to you yet, ask again. I think three asked me but I only sent it twice...  
**

_**Next: Rose may be damaged beyond belief, but she still has a few tricks up her sleeve.**_


	7. Healing

**They may have explained the creation of the Dream Lord in "Amy's Choice" but who knows, maybe the Metacrisis was able to get some of that Psychic Pollen through the cracks in dimensions so he could come over ;)**

**T again for language.**

* * *

**Chapter 7 – Healing**

** _Last Time:_**

_ "How did you get in here?" The Doctor asked, this time calmly, not wanting to make any sudden moves, lest his clone decide to hurt her again._

_ "You think I wouldn't have a backup plan? A way to get inside her head?" He shook his head, his black hair flipping up a bit. "Really Doctor, it's insulting how much you underestimate me. Since you rejected us I've had more than plenty of time to learn a few new tricks. After all, I_ am _the Dream Lord." He grinned._

_ "Just let Rose go, she doesn't need to hurt any more for you. This is between us now."_

_ "Is that so?" He removed the blade from her neck but kept his arm firmly wrapped around her waist. He brought the knife down and brushed it over her side where the knife had been lodged in her physical body. Rose jerked in fear and remembrance._

_ "Stop, John, please, stop." She begged, tears streaming down her face._

_ "I was only ever John to you, wasn't I?" He leaned over her ear, pressing his entire body up against hers and whispering. "Never enough to be the Doctor for you." He jerked back and yelled. "You want him? Here!" He let go of her and shoved her towards the Doctor. She collapsed him his arms. "It was always him!" He shouted. "And I couldn't do anything about it! Until now." He looked around the area that was Rose's mind. Rose's subconscious screamed and clutched her head as the barren wasteland began to shake violently._

_ "Stop it you bastard!" The Doctor shouted at him. The Metacrisis just laughed._

_ "You're angry aren't you? Angry that I have control of her and you can't do anything to stop me. And once Rose is gone beyond saving, I'll do the same to you. It'll be like Gallifrey burning again, but worse!" He laughed again, and suddenly the Doctor felt helpless. How could he stop him?_

_ "What happened to you?" Rose said as the Doctor helped her up. After she was upright she began walking towards the clone. _

_ "Rose, no!" The Doctor shouted but she ignored him. The clone stumbled back in fear and recognition as Rose's eyes gradually glowed to a bright gold. When she spoke next her voice was ethereal and echoed around the three of them._

_ "What happened to you?" She repeated. The Metacrisis shrunk back and turned his head away. Soon the Bad Wolf was standing directly in front of him. He seemed to sober as he turned to stare into the depths of her powerful and compassionate eyes._

_ "All I ever wanted was your approval." He said softly. Rose's eyes seemed to dim a bit._

_ "And you have. My Doctor." She leaned over and snogged him as hard as she did back on Bad Wolf Bay. The Metacrisis groaned and ran his hands through her golden hair. A bright light enveloped them both, before leaving the Bad Wolf and entering the clone. Rose gasped, feeling herself come back. She looked at him sadly._

_ "I'm sorry for whatever I did to make you become like this." She said. "But please, you have to stop. Somewhere inside I know you're still the Doctor. And you'll do the right thing." The Metacrisis took a deep breath as his own eyes turned gold and the Bad Wolf's strength overpowered his own._

_ "D-Do you love me, Rose Tyler?" He was fading, but it was clear his eyes were tearing up._

_ "I do. So much. I love you." The Metacrisis smiled sadly and was lost in the golden light. When it dissipated he was gone. Rose looked downcast for a moment, but smiled when she felt the Doctor's hand on her shoulder._

_ "She's gone." She said with a sigh. "The Bad Wolf used up the rest of her life to get rid of him." She looked up at the Doctor and he wiped the tears from her eyes._

_ "Did you mean it?" He asked her. "What you said to him?"_

_ "Mostly."_

_ "Mostly?"_

_ "I _did_ love him. Before he went bonkers!" The Doctor chuckled. Rose looked around the ruined, burning wasteland that was her mind. "This will take a while to fix won't it?" She looked down to her left and noticed a sparkling pile of dust. The Doctor picked some up. It was Psychic Pollen. The same that had landed in the TARDIS rotor and induced the first dream state for him and the Ponds. So that's how he did it. The Doctor blew it away and sighed._

_ "I've done all I can." The Doctor replied somberly. "The rest will just take time."_

_ "Thank you." She said. "I don't think I could have lasted much longer with him in here." She sniffed and tried not to cry but when the Doctor pulled her into his embrace she started to sob._

* * *

The Doctor's fingers slipped from Rose's temples and they both gasped into wakefulness. He sat upon her bed and, just like he had done inside her head, pulled her into his embrace, being careful not to touch her bandaged side. Rose gripped onto his tweed lapel like it was her last lifeline, and maybe it was. Her breaths were short and raspy.

"These next few weeks are going to be rough before your mind begins to heal from the trauma." Rose merely nodded against his chest. "But no matter what happens, how alone and terrified you feel, I'll always be here."

"Thank you." She whispered, not having the strength to say anything else.

"Just sleep." He replied, pulling her closer. "It'll start the healing process.

She did as she was told.

* * *

Rose leaned on the Doctor heavily as he helped her into the library.

_"Equal amounts of physical therapy and mental rest will be the fastest way to heal your mind and body."_ He had said earlier. As they entered the library Rose sniffed the air.

"Do I smell chlorine?" She asked, holding back a grin.

"Yeah, that's the swimming pool." Rose laughed, before wincing and grabbing her side. The Doctor immediately stopped. Rose smiled through gritted teeth. "Nothing's ever average for you huh?"

* * *

After they walked past a few book shelves they found Amy and Rory waiting for them in the pool. As soon as they saw the Doctor and Rose they hopped out, grabbing towels to dry themselves off with. Rose giggled inwardly at Amy's expression as her eyes hungrily roamed over her husband's wet, bare chest. Better than her checking out the Doctor. She felt ridiculous, swallowing down the sudden rise of unnecessary jealousy. _Still need to work on that._

"I hope you don't mind us here." Rory said as he ran a towel over his arms, chest and stomach.

"No, you have a right to know too." The Doctor let Rose lean on a book shelf while he ran and got her a lawn chair to sit on. "It's dangerous to run by the pool." She commented as the Doctor helped her onto it.

"Psht. Please, I can run by the pool, while defeating a Cybermen army with my right hand and a Sontaran fleet with my right...no, left...where was I?" Rose laughed again but bit back a cry.

"Don't make me laugh." She begged, grinning and clutching her side. The smile fell from her face. "Let's make this quick before I have another episode." She placed two fingers between her eyebrows and gently massaged her head.

"Episodes?" Rory asked, naturally curious.

"Tell you later." The Doctor said, before turning to Rose. "Alright, what happened after...after..."

"After you left me and your clone on Bad Wolf Bay?"

"Yeah." Rose took a deep breath and prepared to begin.

"Well, after you left, things were a bit strained, but it was okay. At least at first. Then my mum made some stupid remark to him about being just a clone when he couldn't fix the stupid washer as fast as she wanted." She scrunched up her face in anger. "The notion got into his head that that was all he was and I didn't think he was good enough." She twisted her mouth in thought. "Probably didn't help that I missed you, the _real_ you, so much." The Doctor rubbed her shoulder and she closed her eyes in pleasure.

"Anyway, things seemed to go downhill from there. He became violent and vengeful. And then there was the baby–" She looked down at her flat stomach and frowned. "I tried to convince him that I loved him and we had sex. I didn't think I'd get pregnant so fast, I wouldn't have slept with him if I'd known..." She sniffed.

"It's okay, you don't have to continue." The Doctor said.

"No, I want to. I was six months along when I entered into his study without knocking." She closed her eyes to tears as the memory came back in a flash of light.

_"John? John I was wondering if-" She opened the door to his study and stopped. He was seated at his desk, bits and pieces of machinery decorating it. At the sound of __her voice the Doctor's clone spun around. Rose's heart leapt in fear at the flash of anger in his eyes._

_ "What are you doing?" He demanded, standing up so quickly he knocked his chair over. "Don't you know I'm busy?"_

_ "Nothing, I was just wondering if you wanted your lunch now or-"_

_ "Just like you." He interrupted her. "Always worrying about minor, insignificant details. There are planets exploding at this very moment, and you're concerned if I want chips with my bloody sandwich!" He walked over and towered over her. "I'm sick and tired of it! Maybe this wasn't such a good idea. You're too domestic for me." She shrunk back._

_ "John, I didn't mean, I..."_

_ "Shut up!"_

_ "No, you shut up!" Rose suddenly got angry. How dare he insult her, after all that they've been __through? And she was carrying his child, no less! "I've had to wait for so many years for things to go my way, and I'm not going to have you yell at me in my own home after all that's happened, what _we've_ done." John stood there, quivering for a moment. Suddenly his hand lashed out and connected with her cheek with such a force she stumbled backwards, her body striking the dresser by the door. She collapsed to the floor and gasped at a sudden pain in her abdomen. Reaching her hand down, it came back up covered in blood._

"Ultimately we lost the baby." She wiped her hands over her eyes to get rid of the moisture. "That pushed him over the edge. He kept saying it was my fault that we lost the baby, and before I could stop myself I said if he was really the Doctor he wouldn't have hurt me or our baby." She shut her eyes and shivered. _The beatings, the mindless sex, everything he made her go through, it was nearly too much to bear._

"One day he realized it was ultimately your fault that he existed, how he was born in blood and battle and that you had to pay for what he was going through. In order to separate himself from you he changed his clothes and dyed his hair, to remind himself of his birth in blood and war. I don't even know where he got that stick of eyeliner." The Doctor brushed a strand of hair behind her ear.

"He became obsessed with finding a way over here, and nothing worked, until one day he found he could manipulate the walls between the universe just enough to send a projection over, just like you did on Bad Wolf Bay the first time."

_"Just an imagine, no touch."_ She paused for a breath.

"He killed a man, a security guard at the Torchwood in our world to steal the shape-shifting device, and, after throwing some Psychic Pollen(which he also stole from Torchwood) through a small rupture in time to induce your dreams, he made his first test as the Dream Lord."

"That was when we first met him and he made Amy pregnant." Rory commented and Amy touched her stomach, thinking also of the child _Melody_ that had been stolen from them. Those bastards had also stolen their chance of having a family, ever again.

"I could see everything he did to you three then and I couldn't stop him. He wouldn't listen to me. Rory, when you were leaning over your child's crib and when you realized your child never existed, the Metacrisis was laughing at the pain you were going through. It was like retribution for the pain in his own heart, and he wouldn't let me help him." All four of them were silent for a minute.

"So, how did you get to this dimension?" The Doctor asked her.

"As I said before, he was obsessed with finding a way over here so he could use me in the projections for your torture as well. One day the Dimension Cannon suddenly began working, and we realised the walls between universes were cracking."

"The cracks in time." Amy piped up, remembering. Rose nodded.

"Once we were here, John – the clone – wanted to take revenge on everyone who had done wrong against him. He stole a space ship from the Torchwood 3 here and he took me to the Sycorax home planet where he cut off the leader's hand, because if the previous leader hadn't done that to you he never would have existed. When we got back to Earth he killed Jack over a dozen times for finding your hand and keeping it. Speaking of which, we need to talk about Jack." The Doctor nodded. Rose closed her eyes and placed her head in her hands, her brain barely processing the horror of watching what looked like the Doctor kill her best friend in unspeakable barbaric ways.

_"Jack! It's not him, he's not the Doctor! JACK!" _She shuddered and the Doctor placed a hand on her back, snapping her out of it. She rubbed her hands over her face and looked up again. "The only one he wouldn't touch was Donna. It was like his revenge switch was turned off towards her. He had a sort of fondness, hell, he might have even loved her at some point."

"That would make sense." The Doctor said.

"And when he was ready he prepared to lash you into his spider-web of dream worlds again, using me as the target point. Now, up until this point I hadn't tried to stop him, but when I did he became so enraged he stabbed me and hooked my brain up to his new dream machine so I wouldn't die."

"What do you remember of the Dream Worlds?"

"Everything." She replied to the Doctor's question. "I was there but I couldn't control what I was doing. I remember you going crazy, Amy bringing me back, our four children, our life..." She suddenly stopped. Her body began shaking violently.

"She's having an episode." The Doctor leapt up and grabbed a piece of leather from his pocket, shoving it in between her teeth. "Tie her arms and legs down." He threw some rope to Amy and Rory. "She lashes out and either tries to hurt me or herself with this kind of episode."

"There's different kinds?" Amy asked and the Doctor nodded.

* * *

Over the next few weeks those kinds became painfully clear. In the middle of the night Rose would wake up screaming and sobbing, other times she would become still as a stone, like her senses of sight, hearing and overall thought were switched off.

The TARDIS had moved Rose's bed to one side of the Doctor's bedroom so he could always keep an eye on her while her mind attempted to heal itself from all the damage the clone had done to her, not just what he'd done inside her head, but also the horrors she had gone through both in the real world and the dream one. The Doctor would have put her in his own bed to watch her even better, but the last thing he wanted to do was put her in a situation she wasn't ready for.

One particular night the Doctor woke up to Rose screaming his name. He leapt out of his bed and ran over to her side.

"Rose, I'm here." He leaned over her and squeaked when her hands shot out and wrapped around his throat.

"Leave me alone!" She shouted. "Doctor!" She yelled his name again.

"Rose, it's me, the Doctor." He gasped, talking with difficulty due to lack of oxygen. "Wake up!" Her hands suddenly released from his neck. He rubbed the area and gulped in air gratefully.

"I'm sorry." She whispered, before crying out and clutching her head. "He's inside me." She sobbed. "I can hear him laughing, calling me a worthless whore, hurting me...raping me." The Doctor climbed on top of the duvet and held her close, wiping the sweat off her forehead.

"He's not there anymore." He reminded her. "Just the echo of the things he's done to you."

"Please, get him out!" Rose begged, as if she didn't hear him. "I can't take it anymore, he's always there!" She sobbed hysterically. The Doctor shushed her and rubbed her back until her cries died down to quiet hiccups and then soft breathing that signaled she had finally fallen asleep, still fighting for peace in the shattered recesses of her mind. As the Doctor stroked the hair off her forehead, she muttered,

_"Jacelyn." _The Doctor's hearts clenched, knowing how much it killed her to know her daughter never existed yet still had nine years of memories of her, Lohrna, Tanya and Treynol. He knew what it felt like to miss someone who never existed. And for the millionth time he cursed his clone for turning Rose into a haunted, tainted image of the perfect, beautiful Rose Tyler she had been before.

_"In the pain there is healing.  
In your name I find healing.  
So I'm holdin' on.  
I'm barely holdin' on to you."_

* * *

Two weeks later the Doctor, Rose and Rory were inside the Med Bay and Amy was wandering elsewhere in the TARDIS, finding all the medical terminology boring to tears (to put it in her own words).

Rose sat still on the examining table, staring straight ahead but her eyes registering nothing.

"I've never seen anything like this." Rory said as he snapped her fingers in front of her face in an attempt to gain her attention, but she didn't even blink.

"Bright side, she could win in a stare-down with a weeping angel." The Doctor said as he pulled the bandages off her injured side. Rory examined the wound and nodded.

"Looking good." He grabbed the new bandages from the Doctor's hands and put them on. "If only her mind was healing as quickly."

"She's getting better." The Doctor insisted. "She's not having as many episodes." They both started as Rose gasped, her eyes flickering between them both.

"Again?" The men nodded. "I'm so sorry."

"It's not your fault, Rose." The Doctor reminded her.

"But it is!" She retorted. "I made John go crazy!"

"Stop it! No you didn't." He leaned in front of her, staring her right in the eyes. "I know you. You only make people better, like you did me."

"And ruin others' lives like Mickey, Jack, Sarah Jane and my dad." Obviously she had been thinking this over for a while.

"Rory, can we have some time alone?" Rory nodded and took off to find his wife.

"Okay, first of all," The Doctor said once Rory was gone. He climbed onto the examining bed next to her and she moved over to make room for him. "Mickey is safe and happy in this world, married to Martha, and basically I destroyed her life so-"

"But I made Jack immortal. John told me. Numerous times." The Doctor shook his head.

"The Bad Wolf was only doing what she thought was best. And look at all the good he's done–"

"–All the people he's shagged."

"Exactly!" The both laughed.

"And Sarah Jane? I made her life hell by saying you never mentioned her. I was a bitch that day."

"Well, there's no denying that."

"Oi!" Rose shouted, slapping his arm.

"No, seriously, she's fine with it. You even became friends, right?"

"I guess so. And my dad, my real dad? I tried to save his life but he had to die anyway to make up for my stupid mistakes." The Doctor was silent for a moment, looking into her face that looked back at him full of self-disgust.

"We all make mistakes." He finally said. "It's what makes you human. I wouldn't have any aboard if you guys were perfect. I can't fault you for wanting your father alive. I never said it back then but I understand. I probably would have done the same to get anyone from my family back." Rose looked down in thought. Perhaps he was right.

"Okay."

"See? It's not your fault John went insane. In fact, the human chemicals in his body may have mixed with his Time Lord senses, screwing them up. And with the knowledge of the loss of Donna...yeah I'm not surprised he went crazy."

"And you left me there with him anyway?!" Rose cried.

"I wasn't thinking!"

"He coulda killed me!"

"I know! And you don't know how guilty I feel about it." Rose looked at him sympathetically. She smiled, reaching out to run her fingers over his cheek.

"No sideburns this time." She said with a small smile. After all this time she was finally able to study his newest regeneration, her mind finally uncontrolled and mostly undamaged. The Doctor just looked at her with an unreadable emotion on his face.

Suddenly he grabbed the sides of her face and kissed her soundly. She moaned as his tongue asked for access and she willingly gave. As he dove deeper into her, his hands slipped under her top. Suddenly he paused and pulled back slightly.

"Rose, I'm sorry. If you're not ready we–"

"Doctor?"

"Yes?"

"Shut up." With that she shoved her lips back onto his. The Doctor grinned against her kiss.

Everything was going to turn out right after all.

"_I'm hangin' on another day,  
Just to see what you will throw my way.  
And I'm hanging on to the words you say.  
You said that I will, I'll be okay._

_The broken lights on the freeway left me here alone._  
_I may have lost my way now, haven't forgotten my way home..._

_I'm fallin' apart, I'm barely breathing_  
_with a broken heart that's still beating._  
_In the pain there is healing,_  
_In your name I find meaning._  
_So I'm holdin' on, I'm holdin' on, I'm holdin' on_  
_I'm barely holdin' on to you."_

_**~End~**_

* * *

** _I swear_ I wrote that stare-down contest with a weeping angel line wayy before Angels of Manhattan aired. X| The tragedy of the Ponds never having children just kills me, but it makes perfect sense. First time I was watching Asylum and I felt like my world was being torn apart. A Whovian world where Amy and Rory aren't together? GAH. Glad they sorted it out. Aaaand for those who haven't seen _P.S._, it's on Youtube, a short unfilmed scene voiced over by Rory that closes off Angels of Manhattan. Highly. Recommend.**

**Anywayy there you have it! Thanks for all those fantastic reviews, I'm sure this is one of my highest rated stories, which really really surprises me :D**

**Next Tuesday I'll probably post something in my deleted scenes story "After the Running"_(which will either be Ten/Rose fluff or Eleven/Rose angst, you can vote in your review if ya like, which would really help me decide which to post first!)_, so you might want to check that out, there's already two chapters posted. Thanks again! :)**

**~BADWOLF~**


End file.
